According to foreign media reports, the three major battery manufacturers in South Korea, which are committed to investing heavily in batteries and seizing the development opportunity of the great increase in demand for electric vehicle batteries, have looked at the European market and are ready to invest after announcing large-scale investment in the North American market.
From reports in foreign media, LG New Energy, the largest battery maker in South Korea, is pushing forward with plans to expand existing factories in Europe and plan to build another cylindrical battery production base in Europe, and their goal is to increase battery production capacity in Europe to more than 100 GWh by 2025.
SK On, which jumped to No. 5 in the global EV battery market in the first half of this year, has recently successfully raised $2 billion in funding to build a third plant in Europe, which will have an annual capacity of 30 GWh and meet the production needs of up to 430,000 EVs.
Samsung SDI’s 2nd plant in Goed, Hungary, will go into mass production in the second half of this year, and their two battery plants will increase capacity to 37 GWh this year, and they are also exploring supplying 46mm diameter batteries to BMW, which will likely be expanded significantly in the future.
European automakers, including Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Strandis, are also investing heavily in electric vehicles and have huge demand for batteries.
In addition, many European countries have announced a timetable for banning the sale of fuel cars, and there is a growing demand for electric vehicles. Data from the Korea Automotive Technology Institute alone shows that the average annual growth rate of pure electric vehicle sales in Europe from 2018 to 2021 is as high as 77.3%.
The International Energy Agency also expects the size of the European electric vehicle market to increase from 1.4 million units in 2020 to 5.7 million units in 2025 and 13.3 million units in 2030.
