Shanghai (ZXZC)- On Dec. 19, the first phase of the power battery base jointly built by CATL and ZEEKR officially started operation in Yibin city, Sichuan province, according to a post on CATL's WeChat account.

The project is managed by Contemporary Amperex Geely Power Battery Co., Ltd. (“CATL-Geely”), which serves as a power battery manufacturing and service platform co-constructed by the Ningde-based Chinese battery giant and the Geely-owned premium electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer. With its ground-breaking taking place in October 2020, it features a designed annual production capacity of 15GWh and involves a total investment of no more than 8 billion yuan ($1.146 billion).

Photo credit: CATL

According to the corporate information inquiry platform Tianyancha, CATL-Geely was incorporated in April 2019. It is held as to 51% by CATL and 49% by ZEEKR Automobile (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., which is wholly-owned by Zhejiang ZEEKR Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.

ZEEKR Intelligent Technology Holding Limited ("ZEEKR") on Dec. 7 (New York time) submitted to the SEC a draft registration statement for a possible IPO in the U.S., its parent company, Geely Automobile Holdings Limited, announced last week.

Geely Automobile commented that the proposed spin-off is in line with the interests of the company’s shareholders as a whole. It would enable investors to better value ZEEKR Group (referring to ZEEKR and its subsidiaries), while providing ZEEKR with continuous, direct, and independent access to the equity and debt capital markets when necessary.