BEIJING, August 10  (TMTPOST)— BYD Co., a Chinese electric vehicle (EV) giant backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, could become a battery supplier of its U.S. rival Tesla as soon as this month.

BYD Blade Battery Image from TMTPost

BYD has delivered its “Blade Battery”, a product introduced in 2020 and was alleged far-less-susceptible to catching fire, to Tesla’s Gigafactory in Berlin-Brandenburg, making the latest factory and Tesla’s first production base in Europe the first one to assemble BYD battery, Sina News cited many people familiar with the matter on Wednesday.

BYD had shipped Blade Batteries to Europe and Tesla’s first EVs empowered by these batteries can roll off Berlin Gigafactory’s production line within one month, according to the sources. The news suggests vehicles with BYD batteries could be produced as early as late August or early September. However, as Tesla’s manufacturing base with the highest capacity, the Shanghai Gigafactory, which just had upgraded its installed annual capacity to more than 750,000 vehicles in the second quarter, has not seen BYD Blade Battery on the production lines yet, an insider of the factory told Sina. The source added not any relevant plans about Blade Battery had been heard, indicating the Shanghai plant didn’t have the plan to adopt the battery at least for the moment.

Neither BYD nor Tesla commented on the report, though a senior executive at BYD had revealed in June that the leader in China’s EV sector would for the first time become Tesla’s battery supplier very soon.

“Tesla is a very successful company. BYD has great respect for Tesla and raises our hat to it.(Tesla CEO) Musk and us are good friends now as we are preparing to supply batteries to it very soon,” BYD’s executive vice president Lian Yubo said in an interview with the state-owned news channel China Global Television Network (CGTN).

Both Lian’s remark and the recent report suggest BYD is set to be the second China-based battery supplier of Tesla next to Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), the world’s largest EV battery company.  LG Energy Solution, the South Korean battery maker second to CATL, and Tesla’s long-time partner Panasonic are another two battery makers in Tesla’s supplier list currently.

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