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Apple's electric car may again be postponed indefinitely, as negotiations with battery manufacturers have reached an impasse. CATL and BYD waived Apple's demands to build factories in the United States before an agreement is signed, according to sources.
Apple's talks with CATL and BYD on supplying batteries for its planned electric vehicle have been mostly stalled after Chinese manufacturers refused to build factories in the U.S. and form teams that would exclusively serve the tech giant, said three people familiar with the discussions, according to Reuters. Sources said CATL and BYD have informed Apple over the past two months that they cannot meet its requirements. According to one of the sources, the American company has not lost hope for the resumption of negotiations with these manufacturers.
CATL has been in no rush to build factories in the U.S., due to the tense political relationship between Washington and Beijing. In addition, it does not want to take this step due to the high investment that will need to be made, the source said. CATL also declined to create a separate product development team working exclusively with Apple due to difficulties in finding sufficient staff.
BYD, which already has a U.S. plant in Lancaster, California, has refused to build a new factory and create a team that will exclusively supply products to Apple, two sources said.
According to the information, due to these failures, Apple began to consider the possibility of cooperation with Japanese battery manufacturers, and in October, sent a group of people to Japan to look for contacts. Panasonic is one of the companies that Apple is considering, one source said.
Reuters contacted all manufacturers but did not receive an immediate response. However, CATL said in a statement to Reuters that it denied "the relevant information." "We are evaluating the opportunity and the possibility of manufacture localization in North America," the statement said, adding that it has a dedicated professional team exclusively for each customer.
© 2021, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
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About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
