[Global Network Comprehensive Report] According to Reuters, SK Innovation, a supplier of Daimler and Volkswagen electric vehicle batteries, predicts that the global electric vehicle market, especially the European and Chinese markets, has great potential, so the goal is In 2022, the production capacity will be increased by more than 10 times.
On December 25, a senior manager of the SK company in South Korea said at a press conference held at the factory in Ruishan, South Korea, the company expects that the battery business will break even by 2020. Cui Taiyuan, chairman of SK Group, said that more attention will be paid to the group’s electric vehicle battery business. After two years of booming in the storage chip manufacturing division of the group, SK Hynix is facing a slowdown in demand from smartphone manufacturers. On the wall of the Ruishan factory, there is a message from Cui Taiyuan: “One day, all cars will use our batteries, replace the power source, and SK’s battery team will work.”
Daimler and other European carmakers are aggressively expanding into the electric vehicle sector as European regulators limit diesel emissions. Not long ago, Daimler said it would buy more than 20 billion euros ($23 billion) worth of batteries by 2030 to prepare for the mass production of hybrid and electric vehicles.
Compared with competitors LG Chem and Samsung SDI, SK Innovative started late in the electric vehicle battery market. Since the end of 2017, it has announced that it will establish new plants in China, Hungary and the United States to implement an investment plan worth about US$3 billion. Lee Du-beom of SK’s battery team said that China’s commitment to phase out subsidies for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2020 and increase sales quotas for electric vehicles will help SK Innovative to expand the market.
At present, electric vehicles using Korean batteries are currently not subsidized in China, but the company is not very worried about the Chinese market. It believes that global automakers, including Chinese automakers, will need overseas battery manufacturers to supply batteries in the future. The head of SK Innovations’ battery business team said that the company plans to increase its annual battery production from the current 4.7 billion watt-hours per year to 55 billion watt-hours by 2022.
Post time: Dec-28-2018