S. Korea's LG Chem Announces Plans to Invest $800M to Build EV Battery Plant
By Scott Doggett June 10, 2009
LG Chem Ltd., South Korea's leading producer of chemicals, broke ground today on an $802 million factory that will be used to build lithium-ion polymer batteries for electric vehicles.
The ground-breaking took place in Ochang Techno Park, some 60 miles south of Seoul, with officials from both General Motors Corp. and Hyundai Motor Co. witnessing the event.
Robert Kruse, GM executive director-global vehicle engineering, and Yang Woong-chul, Hyundai president of research and development, were on hand as both automakers have contracts with LG Chem to supply batteries for their electric-vehicle and hybrid programs.
LG Chem will begin shipping LPI batteries for GM's Chevrolet Volt program in November 2010, company officials said. A subsidiary of LG Chem in Troy, Michigan, will assemble the batteries into packs for use in the car.
South Korea's Minister of Knowledge Economy Lee Youn-ho told reporters that the "government plans to grow the Korean green-car industry to be one of the world's Big Four by the mid-2010s."
The government will provide research and development funds to LG Chem, he said. No figure was given.
In a regulatory filing, the company said it expects global demand for EV batteries to reach 3.3 million units by 2013 and 4.6 million by 2015.
The company's revenue from battery sales is projected at more than $1.6 billion by 2015, when the global market is estimated to be more than $8 billion, the filing revealed.
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