The Chinese giant CATL is considering placing an investment of $5 billion in the United States, Canada or Mexico, with the capacity to produce 80 gigawatt hours of batteries per year, according to Bloomberg sources.

The company is the world's largest producer of batteries for electrified vehicles, with 32.6% of the global market and a market value of more than 50 billion dollars.

The company manufactured a supply of 96.7 gigawatts/hour of electricity consumption in batteries for electric cars in 2021 from an installed capacity of 145 gigawatts/hour, an increase of 167% compared to 2020.

CATL is followed by its competitor LG Energy Solution, from Korea, the second largest supplier of batteries worldwide, with 20.3% of the market.

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Bloomberg sources say the $5 billion investment will double the size of the company, which seeks to supply Tesla and other manufacturers in the Americas to streamline the production and delivery of battery packs.

The investment and capacity that CATL proposes for North America could generate up to 10,000 new direct jobs, which would imply an extremely favorable impact on the electrification of the automotive sector in any country of the region that is installed.

According to Bloomberg, the bet favors Mexico, since just last month, CATL executives visited our country to consider possible locations and considered the availability of a workforce and other foreign trade benefits offered by our country as part of the T-MEC and others. international trade agreements, although they also visited the United States and Canada.

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Among the advantages that Mexico exhibits is the saving of expensive import taxes and that could increase the regional content in the manufacture of electric vehicles, encouraging national assemblers to make the manufacture of new models possible.

Another consideration is that Tesla recently announced that it would rely less on nickel-cobalt-based batteries, favoring the lithium-iron-phosphate LFP batteries that CATL dominates in the global market and already uses for its mega-factory in China.

CATL could supply Tesla from Mexico, as well as Daimler Truck, BMW and Stellantis, other of its clients installed in the region and with future electrification plans.

According to the Automotive Directory intelligence platform, the main destinations to which CATL's investment could reach could be Coahuila, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato o Querétaro, due to the integration of their logistics and supply chains, the proximity to plants that will currently or in the near future produce electric vehicles and the quality and quantity of the workforce available in their regions.

In Solili you can consult industrial warehouses available in Tijuana, Reynosa and Ciudad Juárez

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