CATL Lands Mexico's Largest Battery Storage Deal as European Expansion Accelerates

CATL secured Mexico's largest battery storage contract at 313 MW / 1,639 MWh, began cell trial production in Hungary and opened an Oslo service hub.

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has handed CATL the equipment contract for Mexico's La Alegría solar project, a deal covering a battery storage system rated at 313 MW of power and 1,639.45 MWh of capacity. According to media reports, it ranks as the largest storage installation ever built in the country. CATL itself noted that this marks Mexico's first battery storage system to exceed 1 GWh of capacity.

The agreement, signed yesterday, signals how aggressively the battery giant is pushing its stationary storage business beyond its Chinese home base. As ties across the international solar sector deepen, the Americas — alongside Asia — are moving to the center of CATL's project pipeline. For institutional investors, dependable supply chains for industrial-scale storage hardware have become a decisive factor.

Europe: Cells, Service and Freight

CATL's European build-out is proceeding on several fronts at once. Trial production began on September 22 at its newly constructed cell plant in Debrecen, Hungary, where the first manufacturing lines have started turning out cells. The company puts the site's planned total capacity at 100 GWh. Two days later, on September 24, CATL opened an 8,000-square-meter service facility in Oslo to support Scandinavian customers.

Those moves reflect a strategy of anchoring local manufacturing and technical support on the ground. At the same time, CATL is wiring itself into Europe's logistics sector. Under a letter of intent with DHL Group, the company aims to advance the development of emission-free freight corridors across the continent — part of management's effort to bind industrial partners beyond the automotive sector to its technology platform.

A separate memorandum of understanding with logistics firm Kuehne+Nagel, signed Tuesday, targets battery logistics, the electrification of transport and emissions reduction, including the conversion of CATL's European freight flows to electric drivetrains. That same day, Kandi Technologies reported that a subsidiary had secured a second procurement order for heavy-truck battery-swapping station equipment, with QIJI Energy — a CATL group subsidiary — named as the customer.

Commercial Vehicles and Capital Moves

On the product side, CATL used the IAA Transportation trade fair in Hanover to unveil TECTRANS II, a platform for commercial vehicles supporting ranges of up to 1,000 kilometers and fast charging to 80 percent in 25 minutes. The launch targets the electrification of heavy-duty road transport, a segment where fleet operators weigh operating hours and short charging cycles heavily when switching to alternative drivetrains.

Capital management is running alongside the commercial expansion. To refinance over the long term, CATL filed the prospectus for a new green innovation bond and launched a buyback of its own A-shares on the Shenzhen exchange — steps that shore up financial flexibility for its global investment program.

Washington Weighs In

Not everything in the background is supportive. Reuters reported yesterday that Ford CEO Jim Farley urged the United States to carefully consider whether to admit Chinese automakers to the American market, pointing to Ford's cooperation with CATL to produce lower-cost batteries at a plant in Michigan.

The share price tells its own story. CATL closed yesterday at 291.11 CNY, down 21 percent year-to-date and 38 percent below its 52-week high. Roughly two weeks ago, investors focused on Chinese automakers drifting away from the company on batteries, and the stock has shed 4.7 percent since. The push into Mexico's storage market, however, shows CATL balancing existing risks in the passenger-car business with large international energy projects.