CATL has moved into trial cell manufacturing in Hungary, a step that edges the Chinese battery maker closer to serving European automakers from a production base inside the region.
In a Tuesday statement, the company said its Debrecen plant had cleared every authorization required for testing and started trial cell output on Sept. 22. Its first two lines are now running in test mode.
The trial phase is not commercial production. It is meant to install, fine-tune and verify equipment and manufacturing procedures before full-scale output. CATL gave no specific date for when mass production would begin.
August brought an occupancy permit for the site, and the remaining relevant approvals followed. CATL also met the conditions attached to its Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) permit before testing began.
Before issuing the occupancy permit, local authorities made repeated site visits to address matters that had caused significant concern among residents, CATL said. Regulators later confirmed that shortcomings flagged earlier in the approval process had been fixed.
During trial operations, CATL said it will keep tracking worker health, safety and environmental metrics, proactively send the results to regulators, and maintain close cooperation with the government and relevant authorities.
The cell trial is a key advance in CATL’s push to expand local supply capacity in Europe. Module production has been underway in Debrecen since autumn 2024, with 537,000 units made so far.
Once fully built out, the Hungarian site is set to become CATL’s largest production base outside China, with a capacity of 100 gigawatt-hours (GWh), the company said.
CATL unveiled the project in August 2022. It is the company’s second European battery plant, following its German facility, and is intended to deepen its integration into Europe’s automotive and electric mobility supply chains.
The first cell building broke ground in summer 2023; installation of production equipment wrapped up in spring 2026. According to CATL, flexible lines at the site allow it to respond to customer requirements.
The start of trial cell output is behind the company’s earlier schedule. Reuters reported in September 2025 that Matt Shen, CATL’s European general manager, said the company was targeting late 2025 or early 2026 for production.
CATL remains the world’s top EV battery producer. SNE Research, a South Korean market tracker, said earlier this month that CATL’s January-July installations totaled 289.6 GWh, a 26.6% increase from a year earlier.
In that period, its worldwide share climbed to 39.9% from 38.0% a year before, just under the 40% mark.
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