LG Energy Solution 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 January 25 (local time) and announced plans to establish a third joint plant of Ultium Cells, a joint venture. The total investment is KRW 3 trillion ($2.6 billion), and construction is expected to be completed in the second half of 2024.
“The Ultium Cells 3rd joint venture, 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," said LG Energy Solution CEO Kwon Young-soo. "Together with GM, with whom we have a long-established cooperative relationship, we will contribute to the transition to the era of electric vehicles in the United States.”
“This new plant is very meaningful to GM, which aims to become the number one electric vehicle market in North America by 2025," said GM Chairman Mary Barra. “We will invest a total of more than $7 billion in a plant related to the production of electric vehicles in Michigan, including a new Ultium Cells plant.”
Ultium Cells, a joint venture between LG Energy Solution and GM, will start construction this year. It will start mass production in the first phase in early 2025 and will be expanded to a plant with an annual production capacity of 50GWh in the future.
This is an amount that can produce about 700,000 high-performance pure electric vehicles that can travel more than 500 km on a single charge.
Through this investment announcement, LG Energy Solution and GM will be able to additionally secure large-scale electric vehicle battery production capacity in the United States.
Currently, Ultium Cells is building the first plant (35GWh+α) in Ohio and the second plant (35GWh+α) 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 120GWh or more, including the third plant.
The North American electric vehicle market is considered to be the fastest growing market in the world. In fact, according to global market research firm IHS, 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 two companies plan to build the new Ultium Cells factory as an intelligent manufacturing factory that applies cutting-edge smart factory technology.
