Magna E-Car Systems (Magna E-Car) and Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) agreed to form a joint venture named MAHY E-CELL to develop battery cells and battery packs for hybrid and electric cars.
Under the agreement, HHI and Magna E-Car will jointly conduct engineering, design, development and testing activities with the goal of preliminary validation of battery cell and battery pack technologies for electric and hybrid electric vehicle applications.
The $200m joint venture will be owned 60% by Magna E-Car and 40% by HHI.
The venture will build a plant on Ontario, Canada to produce 10,000 battery packs a year from as early as 2014, while aiming to build additional eight plants in Europe and North America to manufacture 800,000 battery packs annually by 2020. It had a target of owning 30 percent market share in the region by 2020.
HHI expects the establishment of MAHY E-CELL to serve as a stepping stone to enter the Energy Storage System (ESS) business and plans to link its solar and wind power business with ESS as a new growth engine.
