On February 27, 2023, the 10th Mercedes-Benz China Sustainability Dialogue was held online. At the dialogue, Mercedes-Benz announced that it had signed a memorandum of cooperation with GEM and CATL on the closed-loop recycling of retired power batteries.

Under this memorandum, GEM will use advanced technologies to efficiently recycle energy metals such as nickel, cobalt, manganese and lithium from Mercedes-Benz's retired power batteries, and return them to CATL as key raw materials to produce power batteries for Mercedes-Benz's passenger cars, thus creating a closed-loop value chain and cooperation chain from the retirement to regeneration of power batteries. Meanwhile, the parties will carry out extensive and in-depth exploration and cooperation with a focus on the technologies and business modes of power battery recycling.

This is the first publicly released memorandum of cooperation between the two parties since they formed a partnership in 2020, marking they will constantly deepen cooperation in the circular economy to build longstanding and win-win cooperative relations.

Mercedes-Benz is an international premium car brand known for the luxury and high performance of its cars, as well as a byword for world-class luxury cars; CATL is the world's largest power battery manufacturer, with its installed capacity accounting for more than 37% of the world's total; and GEM is a Chinese leading enterprise in resource recycling and new energy. Inspired by the industrial concept of "Limited Resources Unlimited Recycling", GEM has created an industrially leading new energy lifecycle value chain of "battery recycling - raw material recycling - material recycling - battery pack recycling - reuse - gradient utilization". GEM has formed partnerships with more than 650 renowned Chinese and foreign new energy vehicle and battery manufacturers to recycle used power batteries, creating a power battery recycling system covering the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Central China and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and other core regions of China. The annual quantity of its recycled power batteries (excluding lead-acid batteries) accounts for more than 10% of China's annual total quantity scrapped, and its recycled ternary precursors represent more than 15% of the world's total, ranking among the top two in the world.

Through the strong alliance, GEM, Mercedes-Benz and CATL will fully leverage their core strengths, to form a globally influential strategic partnership on new energy, create an upstream and downstream power battery recycling system of "automaker - battery manufacturer - recycling enterprise", and actively explore advanced technologies of power battery recycling and new modes of business cooperation, to serve the green development of the global new energy vehicle industry.

Mercedes-Benz announces the formation of a strategic partnership with GEM, CATL at the 10th Mercedes-Benz China Sustainability Dialogue