Tesla Denies Signing Agreement With Chinese Battery Company

Tesla Denies Signing Agreement With Chinese Battery Company

(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc. hasn’t signed any pact with Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Co., a spokeswoman for the electric-car maker said, denying a Reuters report that it had inked a preliminary agreement with the Chinese company.

“This is completely false,” according to a WeChat response to a query from Bloomberg News Tuesday. “Tesla previously received quotes from Lishen, but did not proceed further. We have not signed any agreement of any kind with them.”

Reuters reported that the U.S. carmaker signed a preliminary agreement with Lishen to supply batteries for its new Shanghai car factory in an effort to reduce its reliance on Japan’s Panasonic Corp. The companies had yet to reach a decision on how large an order Tesla would place, and Lishen was still working out the battery-cell size that Tesla would require, according to the report.

Panasonic plans to supply Tesla’s Shanghai factory with lithium-ion batteries, in what would be an expansion of their existing relationship, the Nikkan Kogyo reported earlier.

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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