South Korea’s battery maker SK Innovation will begin mass production of lithium-ion battery cells for electric vehicles at its new plant dubbed BEST early next year.
Operations at the 168,000 square meter plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, will begin after test operation and product approvals, following completion of the battery line.
At full capacity, the facility will produce 7.5GWh of cells per year, enough, the company says, to power 150,000 electric vehicles.
The BEST plant is a joint venture project set up with 1 billion Chinese yuan ($840,000) in 2013, between SK and BAIC group and Beijing Electronics Holding.
The factory is a subsidiary of the joint-venture, of which SK Innovation owns 49% with the remaining share split between the two Chinese firms.
SK Innovation used its advanced battery production technologies as well as the smart factory building skills it used to build its Seosan plant in Korea.
The plant grows SK Innovation’s annual output to 12.2GWh, with a further of 7.5 GWh due online when the manufacturing line under construction in Hungary is completed. The company plans to reach 100GWh for 2050.