Debrecen — Hungary's second city, famous for its yellow trams and Reformed Great Church — now has a new claim to fame: the largest overseas power battery plant ever built by a Chinese company has officially started production there. CATL confirmed its new cell factory in Debrecen has commenced manufacturing, with planned capacity of 100 GWh, total investment of about EUR 7.34 billion (roughly RMB 56 billion, or USD 8.3 billion), on a 221-hectare site.
The timing is no accident. The plant sits in BMW's backyard — the German automaker's own Debrecen gigafactory, where the Neue Klasse EVs are built, is the anchor customer. Cells rolling off CATL's Hungarian line will travel a few kilometres down the road instead of crossing an ocean, which is precisely the "build where you sell" playbook every Chinese supplier is now forced to master.
It also answers the question left open by Gotion and Volkswagen's joint-venture route a day earlier: while some Chinese battery makers co-invest with European partners to buy political cover, CATL — the global number one — is confident enough to go it alone with a wholly mega-scale plant. Two Chinese companies, two very different European strategies, and the next few years will tell which bet ages better.
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