Chinese lithium battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) has signed an electric vehicle battery supply deal with Honda of Japan.
CATL has guaranteed to supply “about 56 gigawatt-hours” of lithium-ion batteries to the car company before 2027.
The Chinese firm will also open an office in the first half of 2019 in Utsunomiya, on Japan’s main Honshu island— which is home to the Honda R&D Company.
Naosumi Tada, head of CATL’s Japanese subsidiary said the companies had been working closely on “advanced and reliable battery solutions for Honda’s future electric vehicle applications”.
Honda said in 2016 it would start to “accelerate” its vehicle electrification programme. Last year, the company formed a partnership with General Motors to develop next-generation batteries for pure EVs.
CATL has established a series of partnership agreements to date with global car manufacturers such as BMW, Daimler, and Jaguar Land Rover.
Last December, CATL announced the opening of its first North American sales and service facility, in Detroit, Michigan, as it looked to stake its claim on the US battery market.
Separately, CATL has connected a 100 megawatt-hour battery storage unit to the grid in China’s Qinghai Province.
CATL said the lithium-ion BESS in Golmud formed part of the Luneng Haixi Multi-mixed Energy Demonstration Project— said to be the first in the country to integrate wind (400 megawatts), photovoltaic (200MW), concentrated solar power (50MW), and battery storage “into one unified system on the grid”.
The BESS features a cooling system designed to maintain constant cabinet temperature— ensuring 15 years of battery performance in a region where outside temperatures can vary from -33.6°C to 35.5°C. The BESS can also withstand an 8.0-magnitude earthquake, CATL said.
