Zeng Yuqun is China’s most prolific battery billionaire. His ascent has major implications for a world increasingly reliant on electric vehicles.
the EV battery scene can be traced back to 2010—and a meeting with Herbert Diess, who was purchasing manager for BMW at the time. Diess, who is now CEO of Volkswagen, had embarked on an international mission to persuade companies making mobile phone batteries to pivot to electric cars. He tried European companies, including Germany’s Bosch. But he also approached Zeng, who at the time was running a subsidiary of the Japanese electronics company TDK.
The attention Zeng paid to the technical details was crucial. When CATL started making car batteries, another Chinese company, BYD, was considered the market leader. But, as it grew, CATL made its technical supremacy pay. At the time, BYD used lithium iron phosphate batteries, while CATL used a combination of nickel, manganese, and cobalt, or NMC. “NMC had longer ranges,” says Xing. And when China rolled out EV subsidies in 2015, batteries with longer ranges received more support.
Buoyed by the subsidy, Zeng worked to raise money so the company could invest in its supply chain and pour cash into research and development. Between 2015 and 2017, CATL raised over $2 billion in equity financing before going public in, according to Kevin Shang, research analyst at Wood Mackenzie’s global energy storage team. “They were able to invest in the whole supply chain, from mining to materials manufacturing to the battery cells making and even to recycling.