Great Wall Motors, CATL sign 10-year deal

China's largest SUV and pickup maker Great Wall Motors signed a 10-year deal with the country's power battery giant CATL on Wednesday, as electrification is gaining momentum in the global automotive industry.

Great Wall Motors said the two will leverage their respective advantages to promote the progress of new energy vehicle technologies and contribute to China's goals of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.

CATL is one of the world's largest electric car battery makers. Besides Chinese electric carmakers, it has been supplying batteries to big names including BMW and Daimler.

The partnership is expected to consolidate their relationship. The two companies started to co-develop vehicle models in 2016. Since then, they have joined hands in R&D, and CATL has provided batteries for Great Wall Motors' Ora models.

Ora is one of the most popular electric car brands in China. Great Wall Motors expects the brand's global sales to reach 1 million by 2023.

Electric cars and hydrogen vehicles are part of the carmaker's efforts to develop into a global technology company.

Later this year, the company will roll out its first large-sized hydrogen fuel-cell SUV model, which will have a range of 840 kilometers, and launch a fleet of 100 hydrogen heavy trucks.

It plans to invest 3 billion yuan ($456.4 million) over three years into hydrogen-related research and development, as part of its efforts to become a major company in the global fuel cell vehicle market.

In May, it inked a deal with Sinopec to conduct in-depth cooperation in the fields of hydrogen energy technology research and development.