South Korean businesses Hyundai Motor Co. and LG Energy Solutions have built the first $1.1 billion battery facility for electric vehicles in Indonesia.
According to a joint press release seen by Newsng, ten gigawatt-hours of battery cells per year will be produced by the two partners.
Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution teamed up in 2021 to construct an electric vehicle battery cell plant in Karawang, which is close to Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.
As per the report, each company controls 50% of the joint venture after investing $1.1 billion in the project.
Hyundai stated that the joint venture on battery cells will assist both Hyundai and Kia in obtaining a consistent supply of EV batteries at a competitive cost for their forthcoming battery electric cars (BEVs).
The EV battery plant is connected to Hyundai’s automobile manufacturing facility, where the company plans to start producing 50,000 Kona Electric SUVs annually using batteries made in Indonesia.
“We have a lot of natural resources, but we have been exporting them as raw materials for decades without creating added value,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said at the opening ceremony of the plant.
“Now, after the construction of metallurgical enterprises and the opening of a battery factory, we will become an important global player in the field of electric vehicles.”
Indonesia is the largest producer of nickel in the world, which makes it the perfect place to build EV battery production.
“Mineral resources of this nation, such as iron and nickel are important components in batteries that will mobilize millions of EVs globally,” Hyundai Motor Group executive chair Euisun Chung said at the opening ceremony.
By 2020, the government intends to produce 2.2 million electric automobiles and 13 million electric motorcycles.
We earlier reported that Hyundai Motor, and its subsidiary, Kia, had signed a deal with China’s Baidu to collaborate on the development of connected automobile technologies.