South Korean SK Innovation announced plans to build a new 840.2 billion won (US$777 million) EV battery plant in Hungary to better meet demand from European carmakers.
SK Innovation, which owns South Korea’s top refiner SK Energy, plans to break ground in February 2018 and start production from early 2020, the company said in a statement.
Once ready for mass production in 2020, the plant will be capable of producing EV cells with a combined 7 GWh, which is equivalent to powering nearly 250,000 electric cars. Its main EV battery plant in Seosan, central Korea, that added additional lines earlier this year has production capacity of 3.9-GWh.
Once the company builds an EV battery plant in Hungary, Korea’s all three major EV battery makers will be producing from Europe. LG Chem constructing an EV battery plant in Poland and Samsung SDI finished building one in Hungary May this year.
[source: Reuters]
