What happened
Shares of CBAK Energy Technology (CBAT 0.50%) stock jumped 12.3% as of 10 a.m. EDT Monday, after the Chinese maker of rechargeable batteries maker expressed an interest in trying its hand at fuel cells, too.
This morning, CBAK announced it has signed a memorandum of cooperation with a "leading European hydrogen energy group with 100 years of operation history."
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
The purpose of the cooperation, says CBAK, will be "to promote the development of hydrogen fuel cells ... including but not limited to such areas as hydrogen fuel cell production, hydrogen fuel cell stack, hydrogen transportation, hydrogen storage, hydrogen refueling stations, and more."
It's not 100% clear from CBAK's press release whether its new partner, "the Hydrogen Energy Company," is a specific company or a generic term denoting a specific, but unnamed company. According to CBAK, its partner was created in 1902, has over 60,000 employees, and generated 20.3 billion euros in revenue in 2017 -- which makes it sound like a pretty substantial company even with the curiously out-of-date revenue data.
Financial data giant S&P Global Market Intelligence has no record of any company going by the official name of "the Hydrogen Energy Company." But still more curiously, a company by the name of "the Hydrogen Energy Company" does have pages on both Twitter and Facebook, both showing the same trademark ... but indicating a home address in Australia, not Europe.
Now what
In short, we seem to have a bit of a mystery here as to with whom, precisely, CBAK is partnering.
Whoever it is, CBAK has high hopes that the partnership will help it tap into "the Chinese government['s] ... greater emphasis on the development of hydrogen fuel cells for the automobile industry." According to CBAK, "by 2050, it is expected that the demand for hydrogen will reach 60 million tons, the number of hydrogen refueling stations will be more than 10,000, and the number of fuel cell vehicles produced annually will reach 5 million," with sales of fuel cell-powered cars in China in excess of 500 billion renminbi and sales of automotive fuel cells exceeding RMB120 billion by 2030.
