Shanghai-based energy group Envision has confirmed plans to build “the world’s most advanced” nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM 811) battery production line as part of an investment and cooperation agreement with US-based investment firm Sequoia Capital.
Envision, which agreed a deal to become the majority owner of Nissan’s international lithium-ion batteries business in 2018, said the manufacturing facility in Wuxi, in China’s Jiangsu Province, will produce “high-safety, high-energy density and high-endurance power batteries” with an eventual annual production capacity of some 20 gigawatt-hours.
Sequoia China is investing an undisclosed sum to support the “rapid deployment and production capacity of the project”. The partners did not give details of the project, other than to say it would form the basis of “the world’s leading power battery enterprise for enabling the Internet of Things (IoT) and building the ecosystem of the battery industry chain”.
Envision said the move would build on its acquisition of Nissan subsidiary Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC) and battery manufacturing operations in Tennessee, owned by Nissan North America— and in Sunderland, England, owned by Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK.
The partners said they would together “strengthen investment cooperation in the fields of IoT, artificial intelligence, big data and smart cities”.
Envision has built up an international wind turbine and “digital energy tech” empire since launching in 2007.