FIGUERUELAS, Spain — China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) has begun work on a €4.1 billion battery factory alongside Stellantis’ Zaragoza production centre to build the CATL Spain plant, which is poised to be the country’s largest electric-vehicle battery facility. The JV hopes to make Aragón a centrepiece of Europe’s EV supply chain by producing lithium-iron phosphate cells for Stellantis models across the continent, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025.
CATL’s Spain plant hails Stellantis’ Zaragoza hub anchor
Spread across some 200 acres alongside Stellantis’ decades-old assembly plant in Figueruelas, the new CATL Spain factory will receive support from more than €300 million (about $350 million) in European and Spanish public funds, Reuters reported at the groundbreaking. Once fully ramped, the site is forecast to achieve 50 gigawatt-hours of annual cell capacity and eventually produce nearly a million battery packs a year for small- and midsize electric cars.
STLA) said it would invest in a climate-neutral LFP plant in Zaragoza, expected to start production by the end of 2026, ramping up through several phases. That deal, outlined in Stellantis’ announcement, was cast as a way to bring cheaper EVs to Europe while reducing dependence on imported Asian batteries.
In Aragón, the CATL Spain factory is viewed by regional leaders as an industrial leap not seen in generations. The complex would be capable of creating some 3,000 direct jobs when fully operational in 2028, as well as creating thousands more through logistics, engineering, and local suppliers. Local outlet Aragón Digital reported. Officials are already working on similar plans to accommodate the influx of workers in housing, schools, and health care.
Chinese know-how, local jobs and EU politics clash.
The composition of the workforce is the most vexing detail at this point. Roughly 2,000 Chinese engineers and technicians, as well as skilled construction workers from CATL, will be on site in Aragón by the end of 2026 to build out and commission the plant before a larger Spanish workforce assumes operations. Representatives in the union – which did not respond to requests for comment from the Guardian or answer questions about its estimates – are quoted in specialist outlet Electrive’s coverage and elsewhere in international press as saying this initial surge shows how far ahead Chinese battery makers are in gigafactory design and ramp-up.
“The ones that know how to make a gigafactory are them,” said one Aragonese union official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, adding that it is foreseen that Spanish workers scale into higher-value roles as production grows. At the same time, local officials emphasise that the CATL Spain plant is ultimately intended to secure long-term employment in Aragón, rather than simply import temporary Chinese expertise.
The project is also directly in the crosshairs of European trade and industrial policy. The joint venture follows a period during which Spain handed Stellantis a €133 million subsidy for a possible battery plant near Zaragoza under its pandemic-funded EV program, Reuters had previously reported. Since then, Brussels has begun imposing tariffs on Chinese-made electric cars and has also steered Chinese suppliers to build in Europe, where they must comply with tougher local-content guidelines.
From memorandum to megaproject
Wednesday’s groundbreaking caps a two-year march from strategy paper to shovel in the ground. In a November 2023 memorandum of understanding, Stellantis and CATL first hinted at a joint venture for local battery production in Europe; by late 2024, they’d clarified the joint venture and established the Zaragoza site’s carbon-neutral goals with an outline agreed upon months prior, as reported further in an Associated Press piece on the deal. During that time, Spain’s electric vehicle production soared, and Madrid sought to make the country a battery hub to compete with Germany and France.
For Aragón, there’s a lot at stake. Should the CATL Spain factory meet its timeline, it would deliver next-generation battery supply for Stellantis’ Iberian plants and lure a broader ecosystem of cathode, recycling, and software firms to the Ebro valley. If delays or political infighting stymie the build-out, experts caution, the region risks losing a small window in Europe’s race to keep up with the global EV industry. For the moment, cranes, concrete mixers, and the visit of the first Chinese technicians have shown that this megaproject is finally taking shape from those PowerPoint slides to red soil beyond Zaragoza.
