CATL founder expects China truck market to be 50% electric by 2028

Good morning and welcome to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter:

• An interview with China’s battery king

• Google unveils ‘AI Mode’

• The rise of India’s stand-up comedy scene

We start with an interview with Robin Zeng, the billionaire head of battery giant CATL, who expects China’s truck market to be 50 per cent electric by 2028. The bold prediction came as CATL shares surged 16 per cent on their debut in Hong Kong yesterday, in the biggest listing of the year.

Zeng’s forecast: The CATL founder expects half of all new trucks sold in China will be electric-powered by 2028, and said heavy goods vehicles powered by his batteries could cut cost per tonne-kilometre by 35 per cent compared with those fuelled by petrol. For context, in the first quarter of 2025, about 14 per cent of trucks sold in China were plug-in hybrids, fully-electric or hydrogen-powered, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association.

While there are still big obstacles to electrifying trucks, Zeng’s claims suggest traditional truckmakers such as Sweden’s Volvo and Germany’s MAN and Daimler could soon encounter a wave of intense Chinese competition of the sort that has swept through the market for passenger cars.

Trade war impact: Ahead of yesterday’s listing, investor concerns about CATL centred on how it might be affected by US President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. Zeng said the company’s battery factories were working at 98 per cent of capacity as customers clamoured for supplies before the end of a 90-day tariff truce between the US and China. After US and Chinese officials agreed their deal at a meeting in Geneva a week ago, CATL was immediately inundated with calls to “ship, ship now”, said Zeng. Read the full interview.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: Japan and South Korea report trade figures.

• Monetary policy: Indonesia announces its interest rate decision.

• Nippon Steel: A US national security review of the Japanese company’s bid for US Steel is set to conclude. Nippon has bumped up its investment pledge in the American company to $11bn in a major push to gain approval.

Five more top stories

1. The EU plans to levy a flat fee of €2 on billions of small packages entering the bloc, mainly from China, in a fresh blow to low-cost online retailers such as Temu and Shein. The move follows similar efforts by the US to crack down on low-cost imports.

• More China-Europe news: Chinese investment in Europe rose for the first time in seven years in 2024, driven by a surge in electric vehicle and battery projects in Hungary.

2. Google plans to overhaul its search engine to add features that will allow it to function similarly to an AI chatbot, as the company races to compete with rivals such as OpenAI. Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google’s parent Alphabet, described the release of “AI Mode” as a “total reimagining of search” during its annual I/O developer conference.

3. China’s defence minister is not expected to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore next week, in what would be an unusual absence after years of attendance at the meeting. Admiral Dong Jun’s possible absence comes as President Xi Jinping has continued to purge high-level officers in the six-member Central Military Commission that runs the PLA.

• More China news: Xi has stepped up calls for greater “self-reliance” in the country’s manufacturing sector, emphasising a strategy that critics say has fuelled tensions with trading partners.

• US-China relations: Top Republican financial officers from 21 states have urged the SEC to determine if Chinese companies on US stock exchanges should be delisted for failing to protect American investors.

4. Elon Musk, the US’s largest political donor, said he intends to spend a “lot less” on political campaigns in the future, in a blow to Trump loyalists ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Musk’s remarks at the Qatar Economic Forum come after his most recent foray into electoral politics ended in defeat.

• More US news: Secretary of state Marco Rubio has insisted the US will impose fresh sanctions on Russia if there is no progress on a peace deal with Ukraine, and denied that Washington was tempering its military support for Kyiv.

5. The Mexico City mayor’s personal secretary and another close adviser were shot dead yesterday in the capital, in a highly unusual crime targeting senior officials at the heart of power. Ximena Guzmán and José Muñoz were on a central road when they were gunned down in broad daylight by assailants who were travelling on a motorbike, said mayor Clara Brugada. Read the full story.

AI Exchange: Baiont’s Feng Ji

Feng Ji is the founder and CEO of Baiont, a top-performing quant fund in China that uses artificial intelligence to develop trading strategies. He argues quant trading is fundamentally a computer science task and predicts that quant fund managers failing to embrace AI will not last another three years. He explains how his team of young computer scientists are using machine learning to disrupt the sector in our latest AI Exchange interview.

We’re also reading . . . 

Chart of the day

While markets cheered Trump’s deal with China, big US retailers are warning of higher prices later this year across a spectrum of goods, and small business owners say sales are already down as the chaos of “liberation day” creates a “ripple effect”. Will Trump’s tariff climbdown save the US from recession?

Take a break from the news

Read my colleague Veena Venugopal’s fascinating column on the rise of India’s stand-up comedy scene. Making jokes is serious business in a country sometimes referred to as the republic of hurt feelings, she writes.