BMW has reached contractual agreement with its cell manufacturers for its 5th Gen battery cells

5 July 2020, 04:17:42

In a recent interview, Oliver Zipse, CEO of BMW, said that the company already has "a contractual agreement with its cell manufacturers that they will use only green power to produce BMW's fifth-generation battery cells." These cells will be introduced later this year with the BMW iX3 and will power next year's BMW i4 and BMW iNEXT.

Even though Mr Zipse did not mention the battery cell manufacturers, it is largely believed that these are the Chinese CATL and South Korean Samsung SDI. Last year, they supplied battery celles worth of 10 billion euros to BMW.

Samsung SDI is a long-time partner of BMW. Since 2009, batteries have been supplied to BMW vehicles, with the exception of some models sold in China. Last year, in November, it signed a long-term business agreement with BMW to supply batteries worth 2.9 billion euros. The contract period is from 2021 to 2031.

In addition, BMW increased the battery supply from CATL. In mid-2018 there was an initial order volume of 4 billion euros which in November last year was increased to 7.3 billion euros with contract duration from 2020 to 2031. Of those, 4.5 billion euros are for the BMW Group and 2.8 billion euros are for the Chinese BMW production site in Shenyang. BMW is also the first customer for CATL's factory in Erfurt, German, which is currently under construction. It is believed the CATL's batteries will power the BMW iNEXT.

Samsung SDI is also collaborating with BMW on ethical battery production. It includes solving the problem of child labor exploitation and environmental pollution of the core battery material, cobalt. Samsung SDI is conducting research on improving the working environment of Samsung Electronics, BMW, BASF, the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ) and the Cobalt Mine in the Congo, Lualava. Depending on the project performance, it will be applied to other mines.Source

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