China × Cleantech — July

BYD and Changan Automobile created a joint venture to build a battery factory with an annual production capacity of 10 GWh.  “The first phase will deliver the first 5–6GWh of production capacity and the second phase will deliver the remaining 4–5GWh of production capacity at the new Chongqing facility.”

After earlier news about a Tesla gigafactory in China, we found out in July that the gigafactory would be financed via local government bank loans.  Additionally, Tesla CEO Elon Musk went to China for meetings related to the gigafactory.  While foreign companies do business in China all the time, Tesla has apparently broken through a couple of barriers.  This gigafactory will reportedly be the largest foreign investment in the history of Shanghai, and it is also the first time a foreign company will get such access.

Volkswagen Group is also pushing into China, in this case partnering with FAW Group and the Connected Vehicles Research Institute.  Despite a lot of fluffy talk about leadership and potential, the news doesn’t have quite the level of progress Tesla’s news above shows, but the good news is that every automaker inching or leaping into China is very clearly focused on electrification as part of their strategy, including Volkswagen Group.

Volkswagen’s Germany neighbor BMW has also been making more China moves.  It increased its stake in a joint venture with Chinese firm Brilliance.  The joint venture, which we’ve covered a handful of times, is BMW Brilliance Automotive.

Read more at China × Cleantech — July