WUHAN, July 5 (Xinhua) -- A battery plant set up by Dongfeng Electric Vehicle Co. Ltd. and lithium battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) has started operations.

Dongfeng, a subsidiary of state-owned Dongfeng Motor Corporation based in Central China's Wuhan City, teamed up with CATL in April to set up a plant in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone.

The plant is expected to have three production lines by 2019, and make 192,000 battery sets worth 11 billion yuan (1.7 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020.

Wuhan is China's largest automobile production base, making two million cars each year.