You can circumvent IRA regulations like Ford
Nvidia CEO is also scheduled to visit China this month
It is known that Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is visiting China, spent a long time meeting with Zeng Yuquan, chairman of China’s CATL, the world’s largest battery company, and having a 16-course dinner together. After reports came out that Tesla and CATL were considering establishing a battery plant in the United States, attention is focused on the background as it is a meeting between the heads of the two companies.
On the 30th of last month (local time), images of CEO Musk and Chairman Zeng moving to a hotel lobby in Beijing, China for dinner are spreading on social media. There is even a 16-course dinner menu specially created by the restaurant for Musk. Even Musk, who usually tweets several times a day, including Tesla and CATL, is silent about the meeting itself. Bloomberg News reported that Tesla recalled the case of Ford, an American automaker, which decided to build a battery factory that took the form of an American company in appearance in partnership with CATL.
Previously, in February of this year, Ford caused a stir by announcing that it would build a battery factory in the United States in the form of a technical partnership with CATL. This is because it is an attempt to circumvent the provisions of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which does not provide subsidies for electric vehicles when Chinese batteries are installed from next year for the purpose of containing China. If Tesla follows the Ford-style joint venture model, the controversy is expected to spread further.
Musk, who visited China after three years, met with three incumbent ministers, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang, Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao, and Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong. It is known that they will also visit the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai, which recently announced a large-scale investment.
In addition to electric vehicle batteries, Bloomberg News reported that Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, a key company in the semiconductor industry where the US and China are sharply competing, is also planning to visit mainland China this month. Nvidia, which dominates 90% of the graphics processing unit (GPU) market for artificial intelligence (AI), cannot export its high-tech products such as ‘H100’ to China in accordance with the US government’s export regulations last year. Nonetheless, during his visit to China, Hwang is expected to meet with Tencent and TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to discuss cooperation, the news agency said.
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Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.