South Korean automotive battery producer LG Energy Solution and Stellantis, the world's fourth-largest automotive group, announced that they will join forces to invest about $4.1 billion in a joint venture to build the first large-scale electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant in Canada to meet Stellantis' automotive production needs in North America.
Stellantis and LGES have reached a goal of supplying 50% of electric vehicle batteries in the United States and Canada
According to a press release jointly issued by the two companies, the battery manufacturing plant, located in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, is home to Canada's largest automotive industry gathering, and is scheduled to start production in the first quarter of 2024, with a target annual capacity of more than 45 GWh once fully operational. Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, said that the joint venture with LGES is a stepping stone to the layout of the electric vehicle industry chain, and the future goal is to supply 50% of the sales of electric vehicle batteries in the United States and Canada.
Hon Hai is an allyed partner, Stellantis, and actively deploys it globally
Stellantis is now the world's 4th largest automotive group and an alliance partner announced by Hon Hai when it announced its entry into the electric vehicle market. Formed in 2021 by the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and France's Peugeot Citroën, the group has more than 10 car brands.
According to a press release issued by Stellantis in March 2022, Stellantis claims that by 2030, all models will be available in all-electric versions, and that it plans to reach annual sales of 5 million BEV pure electric vehicles worldwide. It can be seen that the Stellantis Group is very active in the global production of electric vehicles.
Defeat the Ningde era? In the future, LGES north America will have a capacity of 200 GWh per year
In the cost structure of key spare parts of electric vehicles, battery modules account for the highest proportion, which can reach 35% to 40%, and at present, electric vehicle batteries are still dominated by lithium-ion batteries, and global battery manufacturers are actively expanding to facilitate the popularization of electric vehicles in the future. Young-Soo Kwon, CEO of LG Energy Solution, said that through this joint venture, LGES will become a key player in the green energy industry chain in North America. With the announcement of this partnership, LGES will have an annual capacity of 200 GWh in North America, supplying 2.5 million high-efficiency electric vehicles.
At present, the world's largest lithium-ion battery supplier is still catheter era (CATL) accounting for 30.7% of global supply, the main product is lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery, according to Bloomberg financial reports, CATL currently has about 145 GWh / year of productivity, is currently considering spending 5 billion US dollars, in North America to establish an annual production capacity of 80 GWh, staff size of 10,000 people battery factory, in order to supply to tesla and other customers in the United States, but has not yet officially confirmed this news.
The second place LG Energy Solution has followed suit and continued to actively deploy globally, announcing on March 23 that it will spend $13.9 billion to build a new cylindrical battery factory in Queen Creek, Arizona, USA. The two major battery suppliers are fiercely competitive and actively grab the big pie of electric vehicle batteries.