Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) began trial cell production on 22 September 2026 at its long-anticipated Debrecen, Hungary battery plant — the Chinese battery giant's largest manufacturing base outside of China, and, once ramped to its planned 100 GWh of annual capacity, one of the biggest cell factories on European soil.
Four years from announcement to first cells
CATL announced the Debrecen site in August 2022, broke ground in the summer of 2023, and took occupancy in August 2026 after the last IPPC permit conditions cleared. Trial production is running on the site's first two lines and is being used to set up, optimize and validate equipment and process control before CATL commits to series production. Module manufacturing on-site has been active since autumn 2024, with roughly 537,000 modules built to date on the pre-cell workflow.
Aimed at European OEMs
Debrecen is CATL's platform for the European OEMs that already assemble EVs in Hungary — a customer footprint that includes BMW's Debrecen plant, plus Mercedes-Benz and Audi facilities elsewhere in the country. Localising cell supply inside the EU also shields CATL's European customers from the tightening tariff and carbon-content rules coming through Brussels, and locks in a supply-side answer to Northvolt's collapse and BYD's own Szeged buildout.
Where it fits
Debrecen ramps in the same week as the 2.8 GWh Tesla-powered Green Turtle BESS breaking ground in Belgium, and as Fluence locked in 206 GWh of EVE Power battery cells for 2027-2031. Once CATL's Hungarian lines hit series output, the European battery map that looked, only two years ago, like it would tilt toward domestic gigafactories will instead be underwritten by Chinese cells manufactured inside the EU.
Reporting based on coverage from PR Newswire, CnEVPost, Car News China and Daily News Hungary.