Samsung SDI accelerates the establishment of joint venture battery plants with General Motors and Volvo
CTOnews.com, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) Samsung SDI is promoting the establishment of a joint venture electric vehicle battery factory with two global automakers in the United States.
The total cost of the two joint ventures is estimated at $8 billion, of which Samsung SDI is expected to invest $4 billion. Some analysts believe that this large-scale investment plan of the Samsung Group shows that the conservative attitude of the Samsung Group to the electric vehicle battery industry is changing.
They plan to build a plant with an annual capacity of 50GWh to meet the demand for power batteries for 670000 electric vehicles with a range of 500km. To that end, Samsung SDI and GM will each invest about $2 billion.
Samsung SDI's lithium battery CTOnews.com has learned that GM has previously purchased soft-package batteries from LG Energy Solution, but Samsung SDI does not produce such batteries. Samsung specializes in prismatic and cylindrical batteries. This could herald a change in GM's battery size strategy.
The type of batteries produced by the joint plant has not been determined. However, some industry insiders speculate that the factory will launch square batteries.
In addition, Samsung SDI is promoting a separate joint venture with Volvo, which South Korean media said would be announced in December.
According to reports, the size of the joint venture is similar to that of the Samsung-General Motors joint venture, and the two companies will each invest about 2 billion US dollars in the joint venture plant to produce 50GWh batteries every year.
Under Volvo's strategy, the brand will use cylindrical batteries in the future, while EX90 will use square batteries, both of which Samsung SDI can produce. Samsung SDI will now partner with the world's three largest automakers-General Motors, Volvo and Stellantis.
