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Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL), a Chinese company specializing in lithium-ion battery Research & Development and production, is making its North American debut at The 2016 Battery Show North America. CATL provides customers with power battery systems for Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV). The company has successfully dominated the EV battery industry in China as a result of fast research and development, top safety and quality and the long lifespan of its products.
"The conference is an opportunity for CATL to begin establishing strategic customer relationships as it moves towards global expansion," said Robert Galyen, CTO of CATL. Exhibiting at an international show for the first time, CATL aims to build an industry bridge between China and the global stage. Based on its 5 years' working in the battery cell manufacturing and battery materials industries, CATL is confident about bringing its safe, innovative, high quality products and storage solutions to the North American market, benefiting customers here by providing best-in-class automotive battery products.
An area of 600 square feet, the CATL booth is among the largest at the 2016 NA Battery Show. The exhibit consists of a passenger vehicle area, a commercial vehicle area, an energy storage area and a Battery Management System (BMS) area. A full line of powerful star products will include EV, start-stop, micro-mixing packs for passenger vehicles, as well as Standard pack, 4C fast-charging products for commercial vehicles and single 200Ah ultra-large capacity cell for energy storage application. These will showcase CATL's powerful capability in R&D, design, manufacturing and provide one-stop integrated solutions for customers.
Mr. Galyen examined current approaches to meeting the growing requirements of large-scale manufacturing all around the world in his keynote speech this morning, the first day of the conference.
"CATL has seen incredible growth since launching in 2011. We recorded a shipment of 2.43 gigawatt-hours in 2015, and have plans to as much as triple that this year," said Galyen. "Our upcoming IPO means we are forecasting a 10-fold increase in sales to 50 billion Yuan ($7.5 billion), or even as much as 100 billion Yuan by 2020. The market for electric vehicles is growing, and so is the demand for efficient and powerful battery systems. CATL owns the core technology of our battery development, including materials, cells, battery systems and battery recycling. This allows us to bring our innovative products and techniques to market faster, safer and more efficiently to compete with the growing demand."
The core technology introduced by Mr. Galyen includes the capacity of 4C fast-charging from high energy density NCM material to high reliability LFP material. The EV batteries with fast-charging capability take only 15 minutes to charge the battery to the 90 per cent level, breaking through the material's limitation and increasing driving flexibility. Another example is the higher accuracy brought by the high performance Battery Management System (BMS), which accurately measures battery capacity, predicts cell service life, and gives better protection to batteries by providing high-efficiency energy balancing functions to both independent and integrated BMS, as well as both high-tension and low-tension battery systems.
Christopher Groesbeck, Sales Manager of US, will also be onsite at The Battery Show to explain more about the company's global expansion strategy. According to Mr. Groesbeck, CATL is preparing to build its first overseas plant in Europe and will pursue business with U.S. carmakers. CATL's European customers include BMW AG, and it's trying to woo more global automakers. In North America, CATL will follow the plan that has worked effectively in Europe, and will establish early strategic level customer relationships and then build teams and develop local expertise as required to meet and exceed customer expectations.