BEIJING, March 25 (TMTPOST)— Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) battery company, is facing more and more competition amid the supply shortage driven by the ongoing pandemic.

Source: Visual China

Fudi Battery, a unit BYD spin off last year for a public listing in the one or two years, is actively expanding business in the emerging EV making stars as NIO Inc and Xiaomi Auto, a unit founded in last November by the leading Chinese smartphone maker, became the company’s new customers, Chinese tech news media outlet 36Kr cited people familiar with the matter on Friday.

NIO has finalized partnership with Fudi prior to the Chinese New Year holiday in the beginning of February, which enables one of EV making leaders in China to adopt BYD’s lithium iron phosphate battery, according to 36Kr’s sources. Many people who work for NIO’s battery business had frequently visited BYD’s headquarters located in Shenzhen city in the second half of last year, these sources revealed.

NIO later that day responded that it didn’t have any information to disclose at this moment. However, rumor of NIO and BYD’s partnership was not groundless. The picture earlier this month circulated online showed Wang Chuanfu, BYD’s chairman and CEO, has visited a NIO factory in Hefei, a capital of eastern China’s province Anhui, accompanied by NIO CEO William Li. Insiders close to NIO"s managment told 36Kr that NIO and BYD adopted a relatively new form of partnership.

36Kr also learned Xiaomi Auto has signed a supply agreement with Fudi as the EV maker planned to use BYD’s blade battery for its entry-level model, while the premium model the company set to unveil is most likely to use CATL’s battery, pending for determining details of partnership. It is said that BYD offered quite a lot preferential terms to win theses EV makers’ contracts. BYD and Xiaomi declined to comment on the news.

Earlier this year, NIO’s domestic rival Xpeng was reported to gradually transit from CATL batteries to products made from another Chinese battery company CALB to address pressure of cost increase due to CATL"s raising prices significant. Another report said Xpeng has decided to apply the fast-charging 4c batteries made by BYD’s rival Sunwoda Electronic in G9, an SUV model released in last September, instead of its major battery supplier CATL.