According to a report by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on September 17, Teijin, a large Japanese chemical material manufacturer, will build a new plant in China to produce glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) for automotive parts. Glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) is lighter than metal and can be processed into battery boxes or structural parts of pure electric vehicles. Teijin will sell to local Japanese, American, and European car manufacturers in China. China's demand for pure electric vehicles is expanding, and Teijin will increase its competitiveness in the pure electric vehicle market by engaging in one-stop business from materials to processing.
A joint venture between Teijin's US subsidiary Continental Structural Plastics (CSP) and Chinese railway parts maker VICTALL will build a new plant in Jiangsu Province. The company began operating a plant in Tangshan, Hebei Province in 2014, and the Jiangsu plant will become China's second production base.
The construction of the new plant will begin in September, and strive to be put into operation in 2020. The amount of investment was not disclosed, but it is expected to be in the billions of yen.
Glass fiber reinforced plastic is lighter than steel and easy to process, so it can reduce the total weight and number of parts. In pure electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and various electronic components, which are power sources, are heavy, and the demand for weight reduction is increasing.
Teijin will increase the material supply capacity and speed up the response to demand. The new plant is close to Shanghai where Japanese, American and European automakers gather, and Teijin will propose solutions such as battery boxes for pure electric vehicles.