South Korean EV batteries manufacturers increase market share

It's official: General Motors has officially confirmed its plans to make a joint venture with LG Chem for building an EV battery plant in Ohio. The two companies will invest a total of US$2.3 billion in the 50:50 joint venture. The site will be in the Lordstown area of Northeast Ohio and when fully operational, the plant will create more than 1,100 new jobs. LG Chem will not only benefit from access to experienced...

5 December 2019

SK Innovation has confirmed that its first EV battery plant in China is completed. A completion ceremony was held in Changzhou in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu and was attended by SK Innovation's and Beijing Automotive Group and Beijing Electronics executives and more than 500 guests. SK Inno holds 49% stake in the plant, dubbed BEST, and the rest is owned by the Beijing Automotive Group and Beijing...

5 December 2019

According to Reuters, LG Chem and General Motors have agreed to build an EV battery manufacturing joint venture in the United States. The two sides will participate equally in the new company which will be set up in Ohio and will get more than US$2 billion from LG Chem and GM. LG Chem declined to comment on the matter, saying it can't confirm a deal with its customers. So far, it has supplied batteries for GM's...

5 December 2019

SK Innovation signed a contract with Glencore of Switzerland, the world's No. 1 cobalt producer, to purchase about 30,000 tons of cobalt for the period from 2020 to 2025. This is enough to produce batteries for about 3 million pure electric vehicles. As SK Innovation secured core raw materials, it has laid the foundation to meet growing battery demand. The industry predicts that the global EV battery market will...

4 December 2019

South Korean media report that SK Innovation is aiming to diversify the supply of battery notching equipment. Ultimately, this will help the company to ensure stable long-term production of EV batteries from its facilities in China, Hungary, South Korea and the US. According to Elec's sources, SK Innovation is in talks with Mplus which is already supplying battery tab welding and packaging equipment to its Seosan...

3 December 2019

BMW South Korea announced that BMA and Samsung SDI have concluded an EV battery supply deal worth 2.9 bln-euro. The agreement was signed by BMW's chief purchasing officer, Andreas Wendt. It encompasses a period of 10 years (from 2021 to 2031) during which BMW will buy batteries for EVs from Samsung SDI. The latter is already the main supplier of batteries for BMW but this deal just makes their relationship more...

21 November 2019

Panasonic announced that together with Professor Masahiro Fukui of Ritsumeikan University, it has developed a new battery management technology that measures a battery's electrochemical impedance, which is an effective method of evaluating the residual value of lithium-ion batteries in devices. More specifically, Panasonic developed a new battery monitoring IC (BMIC) test chip, measurement algorithm, and software...

19 November 2019

Earlier this month, Volvo announced that it will supply 157 electric buses to the city of Gothenburg in Sweden. Today, BYD announced that it will supply 130 of its battery-electric K7M buses to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation in California, USA. This is the "largest single order of battery-electric buses to date in the United States." The buses will be built at BYD's Coach & Bus factory in Lancaster...

14 November 2019

Korean media report that by the end of 2019, LG Chem will produce up to 40GWh of EV batteries in China by the end of 2019. This comprises 56% of the total EV battery production of LG Chem. Currently, the Chinese factories of the company produce 7.2GWh (not counting the cylindrical-type produced in Factory 1 in Nanjing). When Factory 2 starts working next month, the production capacity will jump to 39.2GWh. LG Chem...

7 November 2019

On July 19, Toyota and BYD announced their cooperation on creating BEVs. The announcement was very short and lacked detail. Today, the two companies unveiled more info on their partnership in this field. More specifically, the two parties will establish a joint venture company to research and develop battery electric vehicles (BEVs). The 50/50 joint venture will be established in China in 2020 and the first products...

7 November 2019

Based on industry sources from South Korea, The Elec reports that Tesla will produce its own batteries. This is what the media and industry sources conclude from the fact that Daebo Magnetic - a battery equipment manufacturer from South Korea - will be the most probable supplier of electromagnetic filters needed for the battery production. Moreover, according to the sources, the products might enter Tesla's...

21 October 2019

CATL's first battery factory outside China happens to be in Germany. Today the company started its construction on a former Solarworld property. The 23 ha green land should achieve 14GWh production capacity by 2022 and up to 2000 jobs will be created by 2024/2025. "Germany is home to strong automotive industry and several of CATL's key customers," said Matthias Zentgraf, Co-president Europe CATL. "We believe that...

18 October 2019

CATL and Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus (VWCO) have entered strategic long-term cooperation. According to the agreement, CATL will provide one of the largest Latin American producers of trucks and buses with batteries and is engaged in the whole process of battery development, manufacturing, as well as recycle and secondary use. The first vehicle to benefit from the agreement is the e-Delivery in its 11-ton and...

14 October 2019

SK Innovation and EVE Energy will establish a 50:50 joint venture to produce EV batteries in China. The Korean giant will invest US$525 million and the China-based EVE Energy will invest the same amount. The annual production capacity of the future production facility will be 20-25 GWh. In May, earlier this year, SK Innovation said that it will invest 575 billion won to build its second EV battery plant in China. At...

27 September 2019