SK Innovation will set up an additional electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in Hungary to respond to the rapid expansion of the European EV market.
SK Innovation announced on Jan. 29 that it will invest US$1.148 billion in its Hungarian subsidiary SK Battery Kft to build a new EV battery plant in Europe.
SK Innovation’s third EV battery plant in Europe will be built in Iváncsa, Hungary and have an annual production capacity of 30 GWh. SK Innovation completed 7.5 GWh Battery Plant 1 in Komarom, Hungary, at the end of 2019. The plant is currently in operation. The second plant is currently under construction with a capacity of 9.8 GWh. It is scheduled to start volume production in the first quarter of 2022.
For the construction of a third plant, SK Innovation has secured about 700,000 square meters of land, which is 98 football fields combined. A total of US$2.29 billion is expected to go into the project, which will be completed in 2028. Construction will start in the third quarter of 2021. The investment amount announced on Jan. 29 is 50 percent of the total investment. SK Innovation plans to raise additional funds for the construction of the plant through external financing.
The latest investment plan will take SK Innovation a step closer to its mid- to long-term goal of becoming a global EV battery giant with an annual production capacity of more than 125 GWh by 2025. SK Innovation is planning to invest 4 trillion won to 4.5 trillion won in facilities in 2021 with 70 percent of the funds to be used for batteries and separators.
This article is reproduced at www.businesskorea.co.kr
