LG and General Motors team up to build new $2.1bn battery plant in the US
Chemicals giant LG Chem has announced that its energy division will join forces with General Motors (GM) again to build a $2.1bn electric vehicle battery plant in the US.
It will be the third joint project between the two companies, following the emergence of the electric car as a mainstream vehicle option across Western markets.
It is already building two plants with GM in Ohio and Tennessee to manufacture 70 GWh of batteries, which could power about 1m electric vehicles by 2024.
LG Energy Solution (LGES) and GM are set to fund the latest project equally via Ultium Cells, the US-based battery joint venture.
Both companies declined to provide detail on the location or production capacity of the new plant.
Reuters reported last month that GM had previously proposed building a $2.5 billion battery plant with LGES in Michigan.
LGES commands more than 20 per cent of the global electric vehicle battery market and supplies major players in the market such as Tesla, Volkswagen and HyundaI.
Currently, it has production sites in the United States, China, South Korea, Poland and Indonesia.
Its announcement came ahead of the company’s market debut later this week, and follows LGES South Korea’s biggest ever initial public offering (IPO).
The IPO attracted $12.8trn worth of bids from institutional investors and $96bn from retail investors.
It values LGES at about $58.6bn and will make it South Korea’s third most-valuable company after Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc.