Electric vehicle start-up Lucid Motors has signed a long-term partnership deal with lithium-ion battery supplier LG Chem.
Full production of the US firm’s Lucid Air is expected to start in late 2020 with LG Chem’s battery cells being used in the standard versions of the EV through 2023.
The deal allows Lucid to lock in core volume production forecasts, with additional agreements to be announced in the future for special versions of the EV.
Lucid will unveil the production version of the Air in New York next month.
Lucid claims their vehicle will be capable of more than 400 miles range and 0-60 mph in under 2.5 seconds.
Back in November, Korean battery maker LG Chem secured around $5 billion in loans to build lithium-ion manufacturing plants outside of the country between 2020 and 2024.
The announcement came days after the Seoul-headquartered firm confirmed it was to build a 30GW lithium-ion battery plant with vehicle OEM General Motors in the Lordstown area of Northeast Ohio, US.
LG Chem is also set to supply vehicle and energy storage firm Tesla which is aiming to secure a lithium-ion battery supply for its electric cars at its Gigafactory 3 plant in Shanghai.
However, last month BEST reported how a shortage of lithium-ion batteries from LG Chem’s European gigafactory forced luxury vehicle OEM Jaguar to halt production of its I-Pace electric car.