Reuters reported from Changzhou on 22 September 2026 that EnerVenue, a US battery startup with R&D in Fremont, California, would start mass production at its eastern China plant on Thursday 24 September, the same day Presidents Trump and Xi meet in Washington. CEO Henning Rath said the overlapping date was a coincidence. The company had announced a Kentucky first-phase plan in 2023 (about $264 million, 450 jobs) and abandoned it a year later after deciding the technology was not ready.
Rath told Reuters the decision to build in China instead of the US came down to skills and supply-chain depth, especially in Changzhou. He called the industrial cluster the secret sauce, citing dense hydraulics, pneumatics and automation specialists and engineers who can iterate quickly on a first-of-its-kind line. Without building in China, he said it would be very difficult with the capital available to prove the manufacturing process at commercial scale. A floor manager said local suppliers often develop equipment without payment until a design is adopted, unlike foreign vendors that ask for money upfront, and that graduate engineers earn about 12,000 yuan (about $1,792) a month.
The Changzhou facility is described as about 95% automated and expected to employ about 400 workers by year-end. Rath declined to disclose exact cost but gave a $20 million to $50 million range, with government support limited to permitting, certification and site selection. Capacity targets: 250 megawatt hours this year (about 300 cells a day), rising to 1 gigawatt hour by the third quarter of 2027. EnerVenue raised more than $300 million in a March round and plans similar factories in North America, the Middle East and Europe from 2028. Whether China-made cells qualify for US clean-energy tax credits under Chinese-content and ownership restrictions remains unclear.