CATL and FAW Jiefang formed a joint venture to explore the new energy commercial vehicle market on August 18.
Chinese power battery giant CATL (Chinese: 宁德时代) teams up with FAW Jiefang (Chinese: 一汽解放), the commercial vehicle division of the FAW Group, to form a joint venture (JV), tapping into the new energy commercial vehicle market.
Founded in 1953 and headquartered in the northeastern province of Jilin, the state-owned FAW Group is known as the incubator of China's automotive industry. FAW Jiefang is the truck subsidiary of China's leading automaker FAW Group.
CATL and FAW will co-invest nearly CNY 500 million (USD 73.4 million) in a JV, intending to build an ecological chain of new energy trucks and promote the electrification of urban logistics.
Located in Zhengding county, northern Hebei province, the JV will launch a battery swap network for commercial vehicles, which will encompass NEV commercial vehicle sales, carbon credit trading, vehicle leasing, used battery and auto recycling services.
Moreover, the pair will launch a new NEV operation center around the needs of multiple scenarios, including resource transportation, municipal engineering, urban sanitation, logistics and distribution, said in a statement by Zhou Jia, vice chairman of CATL.
It is anticipated that the joint venture will build more than five urban battery-swapping networks comprised of more than 100 stations, with sufficient capacity to serve over 20,000 new-energy vehicles. Moreover, the JV's total revenue is estimated to reach CNY 1.5 billion, according to Hu Hanjie, chairman of FAW Jiefang.