In order to occupy market share in the Chinese electric vehicle market, Kia Motors is vigorously producing electric vehicles in Yancheng, and SK Innovation smells business opportunities and immediately decides to build a battery factory in Yancheng to supply batteries for Kia Motors.
Electric vehicle, battery, SK Innovation, SK Innovation Jiangsu Yancheng, SK Innovation Kia Motors, Kia Motors Yancheng, SKI Yancheng
According to foreign media reports, South Korean battery manufacturer SK Innovation (SKI) plans to invest 1.05 billion US dollars (about 7.382 billion yuan) to build an electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing plant in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, China. Previously, the company also had a battery plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, with an annual production capacity of 7.5 GWh. Once the Yancheng plant was completed, SK Innovation's electric vehicle battery production capacity in China would increase significantly.
SK Innovation's move is related to the business strategy of South Korean automaker Kia Motors, and SK Innovation's new battery plant is expected to be close to Kia Motors' Yancheng plant, and most of the electric vehicle batteries produced will be supplied to Kia Motors.
The annual output of the Kia Motors Yancheng plant dropped from more than 650,000 vehicles in 2016 to 370,000 vehicles last year. Under the trend of electrification, Dongfeng Yueda Kia, a joint venture established by Dongfeng Motor Company, Yueda Group and Kia Motors, decided to The first factory in Yancheng ceased production of Kia Motors and turned into the Yueda Group's electric vehicle factory. Since then, it is said that Dongfeng Yueda Kia's third factory in Yancheng has also become an electric car factory.
With the release of the white list of power batteries this year, the pace of Japanese and South Korean battery companies in China has accelerated. In addition to co-founding the Changzhou plant with BAIC Group, SK Innovation is also cooperating with Chinese battery manufacturer Huizhou Yiwei Lithium Energy Co., Ltd. (Eve Energy) to build another battery plant. In addition, the joint venture established by Volkswagen and SK Innovation will achieve an annual production capacity of 60 GWh in 2022, and the two companies have recently reached an agreement that Volkswagen ID.4 SUV models will use SK innovative batteries.
LG Chem also invested 2 trillion won (approximately 11.929 billion yuan) last year to build a second battery plant in Nanjing, increasing its annual production capacity by 32 GWh. Samsung SDI's second battery plant in Xi'an is also under construction.