South Korea's SK Innovation plans to build an electric vehicle (EV) battery plant near Atlanta, providing the company with the foundation to predict an 11-fold increase in production capacity by 2022.
SK's board of directors yesterday approved an investment of nearly 1.4 trillion won in the new plant. The plant will be built in Commerce, Georgia, approximately 125 kilometers east of Atlanta.
Construction is scheduled to begin early next year and will be completed in 2022. The new plant will supply batteries to German automaker Volkswagen's North American electric vehicle business under a strategic alliance formed earlier this month by SK. The plant's annual production capacity is 9.8GWh, which is more than twice the current global battery capacity of SK of 4.7GWh. Volkswagen's U.S. manufacturing base is located in neighboring Tennessee, and its goal is to introduce 50 new all-electric models on its various nameplates by 2025. Volkswagen's goal is to produce more than 1 million global electric vehicles annually during this period.
SK plans to increase its annual electric vehicle battery production capacity to 55GWh by 2022, which will be sufficient to supply nearly 1.9 million vehicles. After establishing a partnership with Volkswagen, the company raised its 2022 target from 20GWh to 55GWh. Starting next year, SK will supply batteries for Volkswagen electric vehicles in Europe together with its Korean competitors LG Chem and Samsung SDI.
The location in Georgia will also bring SK's plant close to other major U.S. automakers, including BMW, Daimler, Volvo, Nissan, Hyundai and Kia.
Last year, the number of electric vehicles used worldwide increased by 54 percentage points to 3.1 million. The International Energy Agency predicts that number will increase to 125 million by 2030.