NINGDE, China (Reuters) – Robin Zeng, the billionaire founder of CATL, aims to reinvent the world’s largest battery maker as a green energy provider and reduce the cost of developing electric vehicles, disrupting the economy of the industry which fueled its growth.

Zeng told Reuters in an interview that he expects the development and management of “zero carbon” power grids to be “ten times” larger than the supply of electric vehicle batteries, a market that CATL dominates now with a global share of 37%. CATL, he said, aims to build independent energy systems large enough to power a huge data center or even a city.

In a separate strategic move, CATL plans to offer a plug-and-play electric car platform with a long-range battery integrated into a chassis. Customers could then launch their own personalized electric vehicles by designing just the interior and exterior. The goal, Zeng said, is to dramatically reduce the costs of developing electric vehicles — from billions of dollars to millions of dollars — and open the industry to new competitors.

Zeng’s initiatives aim to unlock new growth for his 25-year-old company, which had its first big success selling lithium-ion batteries for Apple’s iPod before turning to electric vehicles in 2011 with a supply agreement with BMW.

CATL sold $40 billion worth of electric vehicle batteries last year, up from $33 billion a year earlier. Achieving Zeng’s goal of a tenfold increase in power grid revenue would put the battery maker on par with state oil giants Sinopec and PetroChina, China’s biggest companies.

CATL’s strategic pivots into power grids and electric vehicle platforms have not been previously reported.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters on November 7 outside CATL’s headquarters in Ningde, southern China, Zeng also discussed the battery giant’s willingness to invest in the United States if President-elect Donald Trump opens the door ; the path to profit for its European factories; and why the industry’s fixation on so-called solid-state batteries as the next big thing is misplaced.

A GIANT “GREEN GRID” MARKET

CATL’s energy storage business grew 33% last year, outpacing its electric vehicle battery business. But Zeng sees a much bigger opportunity for CATL in providing green grid systems including solar and wind power, dedicated storage and a smart system to draw energy from parked electric vehicles.

China has the highest adoption rates of electric vehicles in the world; Electric and hybrid vehicles have accounted for more than half of all new cars sold in this country in recent months.

CATL, Zeng said, can build a zero-emissions grid large enough to power a huge mining complex or a city. The company aims to go well beyond energy storage and into power generation, Zeng said.

“That’s huge compared to electric vehicles,” he said.

CATL networks and management systems could serve AI companies scrambling to secure green energy for data centers. CATL would partner with suppliers of solar panels and wind turbines, Zeng said.

“A lot of data center companies ask me, ‘Hey, Robin, can you really do this in a 100 percent green way?'” he said, noting that these are often companies “giants”. “They have the money, but they don’t have the technology.”

CATL is planning a pilot project in the Democratic Republic of Congo with CMOC Group, the Chinese mining company in which it has a stake. The company is also working with Hainan, an island province off China’s southern coast, on a larger, longer-term project that would combine energy storage with solar and offshore wind turbines.

Ready-to-use EV PLATFORM

CATL supplies batteries for more than a third of the world’s electric or hybrid vehicles.

Zeng now has a new automotive offering: an EV chassis designed by CATL with a battery capable of traveling more than 800 km (497 miles) on a single charge. The battery is integrated into the chassis in a way that protects it from damage in the event of an accident, Zeng said.

This project, codenamed “panshi,” or “base” in Chinese, has not been officially announced, but CATL has begun marketing the platform to its customers. Reuters journalists saw a demonstration version of the EV platform at CATL headquarters on display to customers and staff.

Zeng said the project could reduce the cost of developing a new electric vehicle from billions of dollars to just $10 million. That could make a niche electric vehicle company profitable by selling just 10,000 cars a year, Zeng said.

This would open the industry to new electric vehicle players in economies without established automakers, he said.

CATL presented the “panshi” technology to Porsche for a potential luxury electric vehicle and to investors in the United Arab Emirates keen to launch a local electric vehicle brand, Zeng said.

“We’re not trying to make a car. Ever,” Zeng said. “But we are trying to get everything ready for the automakers.”

CATL could even provide a 3D printed body for the car, Zeng said.

CATL faces competition in the new market for manufacturing-ready EV platforms, including from Xpeng and Shanghai-based engineering firm Launch Design.

BATTERY PRODUCTION ABROAD

In Europe, CATL is working on a project to build a jointly owned battery factory in Spain with Stellantis. That deal could be finalized no later than January, Zeng said.

CATL operates a six-year-old factory in Germany, the first in Europe, and is building a new factory in Hungary. Zeng said these factories would be profitable in 2025 and 2026 respectively.

The largest Hungarian factory, which will start production next year, will produce 100 gigawatt hours of batteries at a significantly lower cost than the German factory, Zeng said.

The factories are part of a CATL project to manufacture batteries in Europe for carmakers such as BMW, Stellantis and Volkswagen.

Zeng said CATL’s European operations are important in part because the region has prioritized the transition to clean energy. But he called the EU’s decision to impose tariffs of up to 45.3% on Chinese imports of electric vehicles “stupid thinking”.

European automakers would be better off partnering with Chinese automakers, as Stellantis did with China’s Leapmotor, to market lower-cost electric vehicles or long-range hybrids, he said.

“In this battle, in reality, China is more advanced,” Zeng said. “Why not learn from us?”

EU officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

THE EXPLOITATION OF LITHIUM AND THE FUTURE OF BATTERIES

Zeng said he stopped production at a huge CATL lithium center in southern China’s Jiangxi province in September because the price of lithium carbonate fell, hitting his target. He started the project in 2022 as prices were skyrocketing.

CATL’s intervention was aimed at “significantly reducing costs”, he said.

CATL has faced criticism in China from rivals and others who say its size gives it pricing power for battery minerals or the ability to stand out from rivals.

Zeng said CATL did not aim to drive competing miners out of business by driving down lithium prices and recognized the need for a cost-effective supply chain. “As a big player in the battery field, we want to maintain, or do our best, maintain oxygen for everyone,” Zeng said.

The reasons for the suspension of production were not communicated. CATL said it was making “adjustments” to production when it first announced the move in September.

CATL’s Yichun plant also faced higher costs due to its reliance on a hard type of lithium ore, analysts said.

Zeng also downplayed the potential of solid-state batteries as the next revolutionary technology.

CATL employs more than 20,000 people in research, including 1,000 people dedicated to solid-state batteries, touted for years as a lighter, more powerful alternative to the current generation of electric vehicle batteries.

Zeng expects CATL to begin a limited deployment of this technology in 2027. The Chinese government has also provided more than $830 million to fund industry-wide solid-state battery research.

But Zeng sees sodium-ion batteries as a better choice, potentially replacing up to half of the lithium-iron phosphate battery market that CATL now dominates. Unlike other battery materials, sodium is cheap and abundant, and its chemical composition has the potential to reduce fire risks in electric vehicles, experts said.

CATL offers a sodium-ion battery combined with lithium-ion batteries for use in electric vehicles.

(Reporting by Kevin Krolicki and Zhang Yan in Ningde; editing by Brian Thevenot and Matthew Lewis)