LG Chem to build EV battery plant in Europe
Last week LG Chem announced its intention to build a lithium-ion battery plant in Europe. Until now, the European market has been supplied by LG Chem’s Korean factory﻿, which has a production capacity of 200,000. LG Chem also has a factory in the US, with a capacity of up to 50,000 batteries and was ﻿recently increasing its workforce there. Furthermore, a third plant is under construction in China for more than 100,000 cars. Now we learn that that LG Chem is planning to build an electric car battery plant with an annual production capacity of 50,000 batteries in Europe and is looking for a suitable site (said to be in Poland). A company spokesman said last week that “A factory in Europe will help us reduce logistics costs and increase supplies to the European market.”

Originally published on EV Obsession.

As many of you know, I’m from Florida but I’ve ended up in Wrocław, Poland. I’ve now lived here for over 7 years. It’s a beautiful city of ~1 million and has several large international employers sucking off the blood of the insane number of young adults who go to college/university here and then also stick around to settle down. LG is one of those employers. It has LG Electronics, LG Display, and LG Innotek arms here.

Getting to the point of the story, LG Chem recently announced that it is looking to open an EV battery manufacturing plant in Europe that will produce ~50,000 EV batteries a year… and Wrocław is reportedly the top contender for that.

By volume, Panasonic is currently the largest producer of electric vehicle battery cells, specifically because it produces the battery cells for Tesla Motors. However, LG Chem seems to have the most agreements with automakers to supply them with lithium-ion batteries. This includes big players like GM, the Renault-Nissan Alliance, Daimler/Mercedes, and Volkswagen Group (which has Audi, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda, and Volkswagen, among others, under its umbrella… for now).

At the moment, LG Chem has a South Korea EV battery factory that can pump out 200,000 batteries a year as well as a factory in Holland, Michigan, that can pump out 50,000 batteries a year. It is building a factory in China that will be able to produce 100,000 EV batteries a year.

Getting up to a total production capacity of 400,000 batteries a year is nice, but I hope LG has much bigger plans than that for the coming years. If it wants to become the #1 EV battery manufacturer on the planet, I think it’ll need to ramp up production very quickly to meet the surge in EV demand we’re going to see within the coming few years. And that’s only more true when you look at recent EV battery cost projections from GM/LG Chem.

Furthermore, 400,000 small batteries ≠ 400,000 large batteries, and the EV world should be shifting to large batteries, like GM’s Chevy Bolt (and a yet-to-be-named European version of the Bolt) will use.

Here’s a Bolt-load of related stories for more of the backstory:

#1 EV Battery Supplier Now LG Chem With New Daimler Deal?

500-Kilometer All-Electric Audi SUV Will Use LG Chem + Samsung SDI Battery Cells

New Report On EV Battery Market Details Potential Path For LG Chem EV Battery Growth

Samsung SDI + LG Chem Top Recent Business Assessment Of Lithium-Ion Battery Manufacturers

LG Chem Trying To Steal Tesla’s Home Battery Storage Thunder?

LG Chem Pushes Australian Battery Storage Prices Further Down The Curve

h/t electrek

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