BEIJING, November 7  (TMTPOST)— Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), the world’s top electric vehicle (EV) battery maker, dismissed a recent rumor that underlines increasing competitions in its home market.

Source: Visual China

CATL was said to demand various restrictions to auto-making partners, among which it asked Li Auto Inc. not to choose other battery manufactures for secondary suppliers or it would stop the supply. CATL responded on Monday that the recent news was untrue, according to China’s state-owned newspaper Securities Daily. The reported unfair terms from CATL’s restrictions are “pure false rumor”, Li Auto the same day told the paper. The EV maker also said its partnership with CATL is deepening and it would like to share good news in the future.  

More than a month ago, another Tesla’s Chinese rival confirmed its efforts to reduce dependence on CATL.

Xpeng Inc. has diversified arrangement of the battery supply, and CATL is not the company’s largest supplier any more, the president Brian Gu said in an interview in September. The diversification, according to Gu, is made to offer complementary battery sources for the new SUV model G9, which is touted as the fastest charging EV around the world.

Gu didn’t giving details or identifying which maker became Xpeng’s latest top battery supplier, but mentioned the company has worked with a couple of qualified partners, such as Eve Energy Co., Ltd. and China Lithium Battery Technology Co., Ltd. (CALB).  Coincidently, EVE is one of two BMW Group’s new partners announced that month. Under the contracts worth of “two-digit billion-euro”, CATL and EVE will make new cylindrical batteries for BMW in four plants located in China and Europe, each with an annual capacity of up to 20 Gigawatt hours (GWh).

CATL sold 19.9 GWh in September and bringing the total EV battery sales since January to 119.8GWh, representing a 100.3% year-over-year (YoY) increase and maintaining its top position with 35.1% market share, according to SNE Research last week. Data from the Seoul-based research firm showed dominance of CATL as LG Energy Solution, the South Korean battery manufacture took the second place, posted sales of 48.1 GWh and 14.1% market share in the first nine months. BYD, the company once outsold LG Energy in August, was ranked the third with 43.6 GWh, gaining 177% from a year earlier, and its 12.8% share was up from last year’s 8.1%.