The construction of the battery plant was announced in 2021, as the cell factory is part of a billion-euro investment announced at the time by the two South Korean companies in Indonesia to establish a supply chain for electric cars in the Southeast Asian country. The production of ten GWh is expected to supply around 150,000 electric cars with batteries. In addition, the opening date for 2021 has been set for the first half of 2024 – which Hyundai and LGES more or less celebrated with the ceremony at the beginning of July.
Indonesia has huge deposits of nickel and copper. The government in Jakarta has set itself the goal not only to exploit these raw material deposits, but also to carry out most of the further processing in Indonesia. If the extracted materials are not directly exported, this will create additional added value in the country.
The new battery cell plant was built on the site of an existing Hyundai plant. The South Korean company already produces around 50,000 units of the Kona Electric per year there. Reuters According to the manufacturer, battery cells of Indonesian origin will also be used for the compact electric SUV in the future. This is surprising, because in 2021 there was still talk of NCMA battery cells manufactured in Indonesia for models on the Hyundai and Kia E-GMP platform. The second generation of the Kona is also based on a different platform.
With the above-mentioned extrapolation, Hyundai could still export battery cells for 100,000 electric cars to other factories. An additional investment of two billion dollars is already planned to increase the capacity of the factory by 20 GWh, to 30 GWh.
“This nation’s mineral resources, such as iron and nickel, are important components of the batteries that will power millions of electric vehicles worldwide,” said Euisun Chung, CEO of Hyundai Motor Group.
reuters.com
