The World's Biggest Battery Maker Is Turning Away From EVs
- CATL — which controls 38% of the global EV battery market — wants energy storage to account for half its sales by 2030, up from just 2% five years ago.
- Trump administration policies have accelerated the pivot, pushing EV makers including GM and LG toward grid-scale storage as EV incentives dry up.
- Waymo has partnered with B2U Storage Solutions to recycle used robotaxi batteries into solar and wind storage systems, signaling growing momentum for EV battery second-life applications.
As global energy markets change, companies along the electric vehicles manufacturing supply chain are rushing to expand and diversify. The Trump administration’s stance on clean energy and aggression in Iran, among other energy-related bombshells, have made waves through global energy markets and created a general air of uncertainty that is leading many energy firms to put their eggs in more baskets. As a result, many EV companies and battery makers are turning to the next obvious market for their products, both used and recycled: energy storage.
Chinese battery giant CATL has just announced that it aims to have energy storage represent half of its global sales by just 2030, marking a major shift in the company’s strategy with far-reaching implications for global markets. CATL is the largest maker of EV batteries in the world, representing half of China’s enormous battery market, and a whopping 38.1 percent stake of the global market.
The scale and reach of CATL’s operations mean that any decision they take will have massive implications for the rest of the world. CATL’s pivot away from EV battery manufacturing could lower global supplies and cause the price of EVs to rise worldwide, warns a recent report from CBT News.
The company’s decision to target 50 percent energy storage sales by the end of the decade is just the latest development in a yearslong shift away from EV batteries and toward energy storage. Five years ago, energy storage represented just 2 percent of CATL’s sales. Now it represents one-quarter of CATL’s sales, and 30.4 percent of the global energy storage market. In fact, CATL has already been the largest provider of batteries for energy storage in the world for five years running.
Many other EV producers and battery makers are following the same trend. When Trump took office for his second term and gutted many Biden-era supports for electric vehicles, among other clean energy sectors, EV makers like General Motors and LG started pivoting toward energy storage in droves. While the markets for clean cars were looking highly uncertain, the need for expanded energy storage driven by AI data centers seemed like a much better bet.
“The market for grid-scale batteries and backup power isn’t just expanding, it’s becoming essential infrastructure,” Kurt Kelty, General Motors’ vice president of batteries, propulsion, and sustainability, stated last year. “Electricity demand is climbing, and it’s only going to accelerate. To meet that challenge, the U.S. needs energy storage solutions that can be deployed quickly, economically, and made right here at home. GM batteries can play an integral role. We’re not just making better cars — we’re shaping the future of energy resilience.”
Energy storage also presents a highly promising secondary market for retired EV batteries, which still have a lot of life – not to mention a treasure trove of critical minerals – left in them when they reach the end of their utility powering vehicles. Diverting those batteries away from landfill and recycling them into energy storage applications therefore presents a win-win-win for EV companies, utilities, and environmentalists alike
Waymo, the autonomous rideshare company, has just inked a high-profile deal to recycle its used EV batteries into storage systems that can support grids powered by solar and wind energies. The company is partnering with the storage firm B2U Storage Solutions to pilot a recycling program in California and Texas, with each repurposed battery potentially creating thousands of dollars in additional energy value through its second life in storage.
However, the EV-battery recycling sector is still nascent, and up-front costs remain high. “Recycling companies are only now starting to see meaningful volumes of recyclable materials in circulation, which has made it challenging to operate plants at full scale and make the economics pencil out on recycling alone,” Latitude Media reported this week. But as the field becomes more crowded and high-profile firms like Waymo continue to get on board, we could see this burgeoning sector reach economies of scale in the near future – especially as energy storage becomes more lucrative and in-demand than ever as the oil crisis and AI energy crisis continue to drive up the need for alternative energy solutions.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
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