Hyundai and GM partner with Korean battery manufacturers to build US factories

Hyundai Motor Group and Common Motors individually introduced on Tuesday that they plan to determine electrical car battery factories in the USA in partnership with South Korean battery manufacturing corporations.

Hyundai will set up 5 billion dollar battery cell production Three way partnership within the US with SK On, the corporate that labored with Ford to construct battery factories. GM will companion with Samsung SDI to collectively make investments $3 billion in an EV battery plant.

The partnerships come at a time when EV battery competitors within the US is heating up, and home and overseas automakers are racing to construct nationwide battery provide chains to qualify for the Biden administration’s EV tax credit score. In April, new battery procurement guidelines went into impact limiting the complete $7,500 tax credit score to autos with battery supplies equipped and processed within the US or by commerce settlement companions.

The bulletins additionally got here as South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol traveled to Washington to fulfill with President Joe Biden. South Korean automakers have opposed the administration’s new guidelines that prohibit autos manufactured exterior of the USA from acquiring loans.

Hyundai’s partnership with SK On adopted a memorandum of understanding signed in November 2022. Each corporations will maintain a 50% stake within the $5 billion funding, based on Hyundai.

The Hyundai-SK Joint Enterprise will construct a battery cell plant in Bartow County, Georgia, near Hyundai’s US manufacturing services in Alabama and Georgia. Hyundai mentioned the manufacturing unit will begin producing battery cells within the second half of 2025 with an annual manufacturing capability of 35 GWh, which ought to help the manufacturing of 300,000 EVs.

Hyundai Mobis, the automaker’s components and repair arm, will create battery packs with cells from the manufacturing unit and provide them to the automaker to be used in upcoming Hyundai, Kia and Genesis EV fashions. SK On has beforehand labored with Hyundai to supply batteries for fashions such because the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6 and Genesis GV60.

The GM-Samsung manufacturing unit is anticipated to start out manufacturing in 2026 and could have a capability of greater than 30 GWh. This could convey GM’s whole US battery cell capability to about 160 GWh. The automaker is constructing 4 extra battery factories within the US It isn’t but clear the place this new manufacturing unit shall be positioned.

GM mentioned the manufacturing strains at its new facility will produce “nickel-rich prismatic and cylindrical cells.” Prismatic and cylindrical cells are two of the three sorts of EV battery cells. GM’s Ultium battery platform presently makes use of the third type, the pouch, for many of its autos.