Vehicle and energy storage firm Tesla has entered into a partnership with South Korea’s LG Chem and China’s CATL as it looks to secure a lithium-ion battery supply for its electric cars at its Gigafactory 3 plant in Shanghai.
*UPDATE* CATL confirmed in a stock exchange filing on Monday, 3 February, it had signed a two-year battery supply agreement with Tesla, with the US firm determining the battery purchase volume. The deal starts this July and closes June 2022.
Rumours that Tesla would move from its exclusive cell supplier Panasonic to meet demand at the China Gigafactory 3 first surfaced last August.
Tesla, which has a long-standing battery supply agreement with Japan’s Panasonic, said its deal with LG Chem and CATL was at a smaller scale, according to media outlet Reuters.
As far back as 2017, BEST reported the Powerpacks Tesla was providing for its record-breaking South Australia battery project would be built in its US Gigafactory using lithium-ion cells from Samsung SDI.
