Great Wall Spinoff Plans 5 Cobalt Free Lithium Battery Factories Worldwide

Published at 6:30pm by the South China Post:

A Chinese battery maker carved out of China’s biggest sport utility vehicle manufacturer, Great Wall Motors, on Tuesday said it was planning its first overseas manufacturing base in Europe.

SVOLT Energy Technology, which became independent in 2018, also said it was making “good progress” on developing a cobalt-free lithium-ion battery, a goal of battery producers aiming to eliminate the pricey and increasingly scarce mineral.

“We plan to have five production bases worldwide, including in the United States, but it will take time,” SVOLT general manager, Yang Hongxin, said at an event in Baoding, in China’s central Hebei province. “The global plan is to reach a capacity of 100 gigawatt hours [GWh] by 2025.”

The move comes as Asian battery makers deepen cooperation with carmakers in Europe, where limited means of making the cells that power electric vehicles have raised concerns of over reliance on Asian manufacturers.

Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) is building a 14 GWh production site in Germany and will supply batteries to local carmaker BMW.

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CATL was identified as a strategic partner by Volkswagen when the German carmaker said it will buy €50 billion (US$56.05 billion) worth of cells. Volkswagen also named South Korea’s SK Innovation, LG Chem and Samsung SDI, as well as Sweden’s Northvolt.

SVOLT plans to build a base in an as yet undecided European country, featuring a research centre and factories for battery materials, cells and modules with initial capacity of 20 GWh, Yang, its general manager, said.

Investment will be around €2 billion, Yang said. As part of that, SVOLT aims to seek about 1 billion yuan (US$145.34 million) in its next fundraising round this year. It will raise more funds to support construction, which begins in the second half of next year, with production starting in 2022.

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Production capacity will be around 24 GWh by 2025, senior SVOLT official Cao Fubiao said. The plant’s first customer is likely to be Great Wall Motors, and SVOLT is in talks to supply “German and French car manufacturers”, Cao said, declining to identify the carmakers.

Great Wall Motors has previously said it would form a new-energy vehicle joint venture with BMW.

The European plant would add to SVOLT’s first factory under construction in Changzhou, in China’s eastern Jiangsu province. The Chinese plant will have an initial capacity of 12 GWh, and will eventually exceed 70 GWh.