The Chinese have made leaps and bounds in the EV world – and CATL is but one example of how they managed to do it
May 23, 2025 at 04:57
- Last year, CATL received more government subsidies than any other company.
- Other brands receiving significant subsidies include BYD, SAIC, and GWM.
By now, almost everyone knows that Chinese brands are leading the electric vehicle revolution, with most Western legacy brands playing catch up. It’s also no secret that Chinese battery companies are among those pushing the industry forward with new technologies. So how come they managed such a huge leap forward in such a short period of time? The answer is simple: money – and, more specifically, significant government subsidies to the tune of billions each year.
Recent data published by Nikkei Asia reveals that Contemporary Amperex Technology Co, aka CATL, the world’s largest EV battery maker, has received the kind of government subsidies that would no doubt make Elon Musk very jealous.
Read: CATL’s New EV Batteries Give You A Full Charge In Minutes
While CATL has not reveal full-year details of the government help it received in 2024, it has disclosed that in the first half it got 3.84 billion yuan (~$532 million) in state subsidies. This made it one of the largest beneficiaries of the Chinese government’s policy, only behind state-owned oil company Sinopec, which received 4.06 billion yuan (~$563 million). Importantly, however, that’s how much Sinopec received for the full 2024 calendar year, whereas CATL’s figure is only for the first six months of 2024 – thus, it total, the latter’s figure far exceeded Sinopec’s.
The subsidies CATL has received appear to have jumped in the second half of 2024. As noted by Nikkei Asia, in 2023, it disclosed its subsidies under ‘other income’ in its financial reports. In 2023, ‘other income’ totaled 6.26 billion yuan (~$868 million), and of this, 5.72 billion yuan (~$793 million) were subsidies. In 2024, its full-year report revealed 9.96 billion yuan (~$1.3 billion) in ‘other income,’ but didn’t specify how much of this was subsidies.
Of course, it’s not just CATL that is benefiting from this practice Full-year data from 2024 reveals that BYD received almost 3.8 billion yuan (~$527 million) in subsidies last year, no doubt playing a significant role in the firm’s ability to release so many new models so frequently.
Great Wall Motor was the fourth-largest recipient of subsidies, earning a touch under 3 billion yuan (~$416 million). SAIC Motor closely trailed GWM, receiving more than 2 billion yuan (~$277 million) in subsidies for the year.
All this answers the questions we posed at the beginning. There’s no secret sauce at play here; the Chinese managed to leapfrog the competition and undercut their rivals at the same time simply due to immense state help. No wonder, then, that the US and the EU are seething as they watch their own brands trying to compete in an uneven playing field.
