CATL Founder’s Comments Tell Us Something About Tesla–CATL Relationship & Tesla–China Relationship

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I’ve to confess — I wrote the article about CATL founder Robin Zeng’s feedback on Elon Musk and Tesla batteries fairly late final evening, and I didn’t totally tease out what these feedback meant. One among our readers, “Pitounet,” did a significantly better job of that on this brief comment:

“This interview shows that CATL has grown enough not to be afraid of any Tesla retaliation. What it tells us (is) Tesla needs CATL more than CATL needs Tesla. It is also a glowing proof that Tesla has developed a concerning non reciprocal Chinese dependency.”

Some readers had been crucial of Zeng’s feedback and even of our protection of them. Some had technical arguments and a few concluded the article was all about politics. I’ve been protecting Tesla carefully for 12 years — I’m all the time intent on seeing the place Tesla is definitely going, it doesn’t matter what the noise (professional or con) across the firm is. These are massive statements from an enormous within the trade, they usually’d be simply as massive in the event that they got here a number of years in the past. Although, on whichever facet you sit relating to the technical arguments, I’d assume that you must acknowledge Pitounet’s feedback are appropriate, and probably an enormous deal. Maybe I truly wasn’t making sufficient of the political element of this story!

Tesla is an enormous CATL buyer, for certain, however I believe it’s true that Tesla wants CATL greater than CATL wants Tesla as of late. Additionally, it may even be that Zeng had been given the nod to prod Musk, check him, or at the very least make it clear who has the alpha function within the relationship between China and the US. China–US tensions have gone again … many years. I recall the identical sorts of discussions within the Nineteen Nineties as we now have at the moment. They positively obtained heightened beneath Trump, although, and now Musk is clearly in Trump’s pocket. Anticipating a brand new Trump time period, maybe the purpose is that negotiations are already underway, they usually’re critical for one in every of Trump’s largest new allies.

Total, the purpose that Tesla wants China greater than China wants Tesla isn’t any secret, and it’s extra true at the moment than ever. There’s large EV manufacturing quantity and an infinite variety of EV corporations in China now, and it’s a little bit of a crunch time. If one massive participant from the US may very well be diminished due to some sort of “scandal” or regulation change, that will open up much more enterprise for homegrown Chinese language corporations. Maybe Zeng’s feedback actually are a sort of warning shot to Musk, and Trump by extension (if he cares).

Getting again to the technological or enterprise points, Pitounet had written this earlier than the opposite remark: “CATL is the most innovative battery company, it is going to be the TSMC of batteries. So all manufacturers, including Tesla, need them. In battery tech, Tesla has nothing but hype. It has never had anything but hype. 6 years ago, it used to claim that it had a secret sauce while all the tech was Panasonic’s. It is obvious that Tesla is buying off the shelf from almost all major battery makers. The only real in house development has been underwhelming to say the least.” We’ll see how issues go from right here, however CATL has clearly grown by leaps and bounds previously few years whereas we’ve heard little or no about Tesla’s battery plans. The newest information from CATL is that it’s making whole EV platforms to attempt to drive down prices for carmakers and open up the chance for extra corporations to supply automobiles at low value. Tesla is betting its progress story on robotaxis and humanoid robots. You’ll find each opinion beneath the solar on these issues, so we’ll simply have to attend and see which opinions are proper. To wrap up a few of Pitounet’s opinions on all of this, right here’s his tackle that:

“After multiple years where it thought it would corner the automotive market and have about 40% of this market for itself, Tesla realized that not only is it impossible, but also the Chinese manufacturers were going to eat its launch. So Tesla pivoted in emergency to other growth sectors (AI and robotics). The only problem is unlike automotive, Tesla has no moat and no head start in those industries. Moreover, the aggressive Chinese are already investing big in those techs and some are already ahead of Tesla. So what next?”