The total planned investment in the U.S. was increased from $1.67 billion (for the 1st plant) to $2.5 billion (two plants).
SK Innovation officially announced a significant increase of planned investment in the U.S. battery manufacturing capacity due to high anticipated consumer demand for electric cars.
The South Korean company already broke ground on the first plant at the Commerce site in Georgia in March 2019. The first plant with a manufacturing capacity of 9.8 GWh lithium-ion cells annually will start production in 2022. This part of the investment is $1.67 billion.
The initial investment plan was expanded to $2.5 billion in total, by a second plant in Commerce for a total output of 21.5 GWh annually, which was hinted at earlier this year.
The construction of the second gigafactory (we assume 11.7 GWh) will start later this year (in July 2020) and is expected to produce the first batteries from 2023.
SK Innovation’s approach is one of the most ambitious in the industry, but it might not be the end. The company hints that in the future, the investment could be as much as $5 billion in its U.S., which would result in 6,000 new jobs.
SK Innovation CEO Jun Kim said:
“While the global community faces challenging times, SK Innovation believes it is important to continue making strategic investments to drive economic growth and meaningful change. With this investment, SK Innovation’s battery business will significantly contribute to not only the local Georgia economy but the development of the U.S. EV industry value chain and ecosystem.”
The total global manufacturing capacity of SK Innovation will be 60 GWh in 2022 and 71 GWh in 2023.
Updated list of SK Innovation battery projects and production capacity roadmap:
SK Innovation production capacity roadmap:
* data comes from multiple official and unofficial sources
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