When the rest of WIRED subscribers get their hands on our next print magazine, you, dear readers of Made in China, can proudly say you heard about it here first. The issue is all about China and includes stories about robots, AI boyfriends, a Chinese town that became the crystal capital of the world, and a Chinese DNA database built for family reunions. Like this newsletter, the issue is our attempt to document how deeply Chinese technology now shapes everyday life—no matter where you live in the world.
As part of the issue, I reported a story on how Chinese lithium battery companies like CATL, BYD, and Gotion are now building factories on nearly every continent. The trend challenges traditional narratives about “Made in China,” which often center on cheap labor, heavy pollution, and government subsidies. Instead, I set out to track every battery factory outside China owned by a Chinese company. With help from the New York–based think tank Rhodium Group, we identified 68 facilities that have been built or announced over the past decade.
Entering a New Phase
The worldwide expansion of Chinese battery factories signifies the country is entering a new phase of manufacturing. Chinese companies have become so efficient and technologically advanced that they can now relocate their factories anywhere and still find ways to be more competitive than local players. In WIRED’s China issue, we charted that unprecedented growth in a series of maps and graphs. You can check them all out here.
The world is still grappling with what this paradigm shift will mean for the future of energy and geopolitics. But the batteries produced by these factories are already reshaping the transition to clean energy. The experts I spoke with said the growing presence of Chinese batteries—and the overseas factories that make them—could transform everything from local labor relations to how technology is transferred across borders.
When a Chinese Factory Comes to Town
Hungary is one of the most striking examples of what happens when Chinese battery companies expand abroad. The country is home to at least four plants already under construction, including possibly the biggest overseas factory ever planned by a Chinese battery company that’s worth approximately $8.5 billion. Hungary has become a gateway for Chinese firms to sell their products to the European market. As a result, it also provides an early blueprint for how communities will react when a Chinese battery factory opens up shop in their backyard.
Many people in Hungary are skeptical about whether Chinese companies will prioritize hiring locals or bring in cheaper workers from elsewhere instead. They arrived in the country at a time when local labor supply was low because many Hungarians moved to other parts of Europe in recent years in search of work, says András Bartók, an assistant professor at the Ludovika University of Public Service who has studied Hungary’s relationship with Japan and China. The companies have worked with the Hungarian government to bring in migrant labor from Central Asia and Southeast Asia, but that has prompted backlash from local residents. When CATL, the world’s largest lithium battery maker, laid off more than 100 employees at its planned Hungarian factory site last summer, the local municipality launched an investigation into whether the firm had kept its stated promise to hire locally.
CATL is also facing local protests in Hungary over its water use and environmental footprint, criticisms that it inherited from Japanese and Korean battery companies that built factories there over the last two decades. “Way before these Chinese [investments] were announced, there were national-level protests with how groundwater is polluted during battery manufacturing,” says Bartók. A Hungarian court also ordered a Samsung battery plant to suspend production in October because of pollution concerns. Because the Chinese companies announced their investments in drought-prone regions, they were immediately swept into already heated media debates about the limited availability of natural resources.