China’s CATL breaks ground on huge Spanish battery plant – bringing its own workers
- 4,000 local jobs to be created from plant, exec says
- Roughly 2,000 workers to come from China to construct the site
- Spain’s cheap energy and labour draw battery and EV investments
- Local unions, auto industry welcome Chinese know-how
FIGUERUELAS, Spain, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Chinese battery maker CATL (300750.SZ), started building Spain’s largest battery factory on Wednesday, a 4.1-billion-euro ($4.8 billion) project with Stellantis that highlights Europe’s reliance on Chinese technology even as Brussels seeks to tighten trade rules.
The plant in Figueruelas, a town of 1,300 people in northeastern Aragon, is backed by over 300 million euros in European Union funds and expected to begin production in late 2026.
Around 2,000 Chinese workers will help construct the site, training up to 4,000 local staff who will gradually take over the plant, a CATL spokesperson said. The proportion of Chinese staff will eventually fall to under 10%, the spokesperson added.
At a ceremony in Figueruelas, Chinese ambassador Yao Jing lauded Spain as a reliable and strategic partner, adding that China would keep its commitment to share technology. “No country can develop alone.”
CHEAPER LABOUR AND LOWER ENERGY COSTS
Spain, Europe’s second-largest carmaker, is positioning itself as a battery hub thanks to lower labour costs and industrial energy prices about 20% below the EU average. Three more plants are planned, including projects by Envision AESC, Volkswagen’s(VOWG.DE), PowerCo, and InoBat.
Europe’s auto associations are pushing for stricter requirements on local sourcing of components in part to protect them from Chinese rivals, as the European Commission prepares to unveil a new set of measures to bolster the sector.
But auto industry executives and union representatives in Aragon say that in the battery sector, technical know-how remains a challenge.
Roque Ordovás Mangirón, a Stellantis (STLAM.MI), shipping manager, said:
Before it was mostly German technology, and now it’s Chinese.
”What difference does it make? Here in Spain, what we offered was always labour,”
David Romeral, director general of CAAR Aragon, a network of automotive businesses in Aragon, said:
We don’t know this technology, these components – we’ve never made them before,
“They’re years ahead of us. All we can do is watch and learn.”
THEY ‘KNOW HOW TO MAKE A GIGAFACTORY’
Some Chinese machinery technicians and managers have already arrived in Figueruelas to begin construction. Several hundred more will follow by year-end, with just under 2,000 workers from China expected by the end of next year, according to a local government spokesperson.
CATL is constructing its largest European plant in Debrecen, Hungary, where around 950 workers have been hired so far, two-thirds of whom are local. Still, recruitment has lagged targets, according to unions, and production has been delayed to 2026 from late 2025.
In Aragon, unions were waiting for skill requirements from CATL to set up training programmes with the local university, said Jose Juan Arceiz, secretary general of local union UGT Aragon.
Arceiz said,
As the plant ramps up, there will be more jobs for Spanish workers,
“This project needs to succeed, and everyone has to do their part.”
($1 = 0.8640 euros)
Reporting by Victoria Waldersee in Madrid. Additional reporting by Gergely Szakacs in Budapest, Rachel More in Berlin; Editing by Aislinn Laing, Mark Potter and Emelia Sithole-Matarise
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China’s CATL breaks ground on huge Spanish battery plant – bringing its own workers, source
