China's fourth-richest person says electric vehicles are the future, and it's a future America won't reach without his help. The Wall Street Journal profiles Robin Zeng, the low-key tycoon behind CATL, the world's biggest EV battery maker—and a company Washington increasingly views as a security risk. While the US has slapped tariffs on Chinese batteries and blocked CATL from building plants on American soil, Zeng says the US market will ultimately "have to be booming" and insists that doing it without CATL would be "difficult" and too expensive.
For now, US carmakers seem to agree more than US policymakers do, the Journal reports. Ford is licensing CATL technology for a $3 billion Michigan plant and using it again in Kentucky, while General Motors is importing CATL batteries for its revived Chevrolet Bolt despite a 60% tariffs. CATL's edge comes from cheaper iron-based LFP batteries—a chemistry invented in the US but commercialized in China—and electrochemistry expertise Zeng says can't be found in the US. He says batteries are considered "a very stupid industry in the US," where people "all go to chips, software, AI" because they "get a lot of money."
- CATL has also made breakthroughs with sodium-ion batteries, which perform better in cold weather, reports the South China Morning Post. The core material is far cheaper and more abundant than lithium.
Critics warn deeper reliance on CATL would increase US vulnerability to Beijing and reduce the chances of American companies ever catching up with their Chinese rivals. Zeng tells the Journal that he is willing to invest in a US factory "but the problem is in some of the states, a Chinese company cannot even buy land." He doesn't, however, expect to be frozen out forever. "Maybe by the year 2028 it will change because business relationships are always stronger and longer-lasting than politicians," he says.
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