EnerVenue Opens China Battery Plant After Scrapping Kentucky Factory

EnerVenue began mass production at its Changzhou, China battery factory on September 22, the same day President Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington. The US startup scrapped a planned $264 million Kentucky plant in 2024, citing insufficient supply chain depth and engineering talent. CEO Henning Rath said manufacturing in China was driven by Changzhou's industrial cluster and cost advantages, not politics. Graduate engineers there earn about 12,000 yuan ($1,792) monthly. The plant is roughly 95% automated and will employ about 400 workers by year-end, with costs between $20 million and $50 million. EnerVenue, founded by Stanford professor Yi Cui, makes nickel-hydrogen batteries derived from NASA technology. It raised over $300 million in March, backed by Saudi Aramco and SLB. The company targets 250 megawatt hours of annual capacity in 2026 and 1 gigawatt hour by Q3 2027, with plants planned for North America, the Middle East and Europe from 2028.