Started construction this year and mass-produced the first phase from 2025… 3rd plant annual production scale 50GWh
Ultium Cells, a joint venture company, “Goal to secure 120GWh production capacity including existing plants 1 and 2”
LG Energy Solutions has officially announced that it will build a third joint plant for electric vehicle batteries with General Motors (GM), the No. 1 carmaker in the United States.
The two companies held an investment announcement event in Lansing, Michigan, USA on the 25th (local time) and announced plans to establish a third plant for the joint venture ‘Ultium Cells’.
The total investment is $2.6 billion (about KRW 3.1 trillion), and construction is expected to start this year and be completed in the second half of 2024.
LG Energy Solution CEO Kwon Young-soo, Vice Chairman, said, “The 3rd joint plant of ‘Ultium Cells’, located at the heart of the American automobile industry, will serve as a gateway to the birth of millions of electric vehicles in the future.” We will contribute to the transition to the era of electric vehicles in the US and GM, which we are building,” he said.
GM Chairman Mary Barra said, “This new plant is a significant step for GM, which aims to become the number one electric vehicle market in North America by 2025. “We will invest more than $8 billion (about KRW 83.9 trillion),” he said.
The new 3rd plant of Ultium Cells, a joint venture, plans to start mass production in the first phase in early 2025 and expand the annual production scale to 50GWh in the future.
The company explained that this is the amount that can be installed in about 700,000 high-performance pure electric vehicles that can travel more than 500 km on a single charge.
Currently, Ultium Cells is building the first plant (over 35GWh) in Ohio and the second plant (over 35GWh) in Tennessee.
The first plant will start mass production this year and the second plant next year.
The two companies plan to expand the production capacity of the two plants in stages, with the goal of securing an annual production capacity of 120 GWh or more, including the third plant.
The reason why the joint venture between LG Energy Solutions and GM is aggressively building new factories is that the explosive growth of the electric vehicle market in the US is expected.
According to IHS, a global market research company, the North American electric vehicle (EV+PHEV) battery market is expected to grow rapidly from 46GWh in 2021 to 143GWh in 2023 and 286GWh in 2025.
The average annual growth rate is 58%.
GM is continuing its investment with the goal of achieving the No. 1 market share in the North American electric vehicle market by 2025.
GM announced on the same day that it will invest a total of $7 billion, including the construction of a new plant in Ultium Cells, and conversion of an existing plant in Michigan to an electric vehicle production line.
GM plans to launch more than 30 electric vehicle models by 2025 and convert all production vehicles to electric vehicles by 2035.
This investment decision is expected to accelerate LG Energy Solution’s entry into the North American electric vehicle market.
Previously, LG Energy Solutions and Stellantis, the three largest automakers in North America, decided to establish a joint venture for electric vehicle batteries with an annual capacity of 40GWh.
The candidate site is currently under review, and construction is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of this year and production in the first quarter of 2024.
In addition, LG Energy Solutions announced that it plans to make additional investments in North America and plans to secure more than 40GWh of its own plant alone.
If all joint ventures and sole investment with North American customers are combined, LG Energy Solution’s production capacity in North America is expected to reach 200GWh.
An LG Energy Solution official said, “The electric vehicle batteries produced by the joint venture Ultium Cells will be installed in GM’s new electric vehicles. will be,” he said.
/yunhap news
