Hong Kong-listed FDG Electric Vehicles Limited has confirmed plans to build a new battery Gigafactory and separate EV production facility in China’s Sichuan Province.
FDG said the battery plant, which is slated to have a total annual production capacity of 4GWh, would be built in phases— so production can begin as soon as the first phase with a “modest” 1GWh annual capacity is complete.
Both the battery and EV plants are being built with support from authorities in the city of Jianyang. FDG did not disclose investment details or give a construction schedule.
FDG said when its battery Gigafactories across the group are “fully ramped up”, total battery production capacity will be around 6.3GWh, “which is almost 25% of the world’s total battery capacity produced for electric vehicles last year”.
In a related announcement, FDG said it had been named as preferred supplier for a new fleet of electric buses for Sichuan.
“This is also an approval of FDG’s vertically-integrated strategy of dominating the value-chain— from electric vehicles to batteries and from batteries to cathode materials”, the company said
FDG said its Sinopoly Battery Limited subsidiary provides the “core” of the group’s battery products, which are used mainly in EVs and energy storage systems. Sinopoly has factories in Jilin and Tianjin plus an advanced battery research centre in Shanghai.
In 2015, FDG sold a 25% stake in its lithium-ion battery production unit, Synergy Dragon, to private-equity investor CIAM Group.
