LG Energy Solution announced on December 8 that it has signed a battery module supply agreement with Impact Clean Power Technology (ICPT), a Polish battery pack manufacturer and sales company.
Under the agreement, LG Energy Solution will supply ICPT with approximately 200,000 NCM battery modules for three years starting next year. This is enough to produce about 3,000 large electric commercial vehicles.
ICPT will assemble the modules into packs and deliver them to Solaris Bus & Coach, the number one electric bus manufacturer in Europe. ICPT is a battery pack manufacturer and distributor founded in 2005. It has a strong supply chain in Europe, including a GigafactoryX pack and module assembly plant in Poland.
The two companies plan to carry out the entire process from battery manufacturing to electric bus production in Poland. LG Energy Solution will supply NCM battery modules from its Wrocław plant to ICPT, which will then assemble them into packs for final delivery to Solaris Bus & Coach.
Electric vehicle batteries are divided into cells, modules, and packs depending on the unit of assembly. A module is a frame that encloses multiple battery cells to protect them from external shocks, heat, and vibration, and a pack is a group of modules with various control and protection systems.
Currently, the electric commercial vehicle market has about 11 times more batteries per vehicle than the general electric vehicle market, making it a high value-added industry.
LG Energy Solution is targeting the electric commercial vehicle market with high market competitiveness, including excellent technology and a large lineup of standardized modules. In general, batteries for electric commercial vehicles require higher requirements and technology levels than batteries for general passenger vehicles. This is because they have a relatively long driving range, must operate in extreme environments such as snow and rain, and must withstand more than 10 times the energy voltage.
"This collaboration with ICPT once again demonstrates LG Energy Solution's advanced battery technology in the fast-growing European commercial vehicle market," said Hong Seung-Taek, Head of Off the shelf (OTS) at LG Energy Solution. "We will provide world-class customer value."
"Our collaboration with LG Energy Solution enables us to offer advanced products and solutions in the commercial vehicle market with high barriers to entry," said Vartek Kras, Vice President of ICPT. "We will provide the highest quality products to our current and future customers."
