The Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL) headquarters building, right, and production facilities stand in this aerial photograph taken in Ningde, Fujian province, China, on Wednesday, June 3, 2020. CATL's battery products are in the vehicles of almost every major global auto brand, and starting this month they'll also power electric cars manufactured by Tesla at its factory on the outskirts of Shanghai.
PhotograQilai Shen—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Amid concerns that the limited supply of raw materials like lithium needed to produce EV batteries won’t be able to meet rising demand, Chinese battery behemoth CATL in July unveiled a sodium-ion battery, the material for which can be cheaply extracted from seawater. The company, which is the world’s largest supplier of EV batteries and works with automakers like Tesla and Volkswagen, plans to begin mass production by 2023.
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