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Completed SK Innovation's first overseas battery factory

• By Lee Soo Hwan
• Approval 2019.12.05 17:24
• Comments 0

'BEST' factory, a joint venture in Beijing Automobile and Beijing

SK Innovation held its 5th completion ceremony of 'BEST', the first global battery cell production plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. The first result of the 'China Insider' strategy of co-growing with Chinese companies has been achieved. SK Innovation CEO Kim Jun (fourth from right) is celebrating the completion.​

SK Innovation completed the Changzhou battery plant in China. Global first battery production base.

On the 5th, SK Innovation announced the completion of the battery cell plant 'BEST' in Changzhou Jintan Economic Development Zone, which was established in cooperation with Beijing Motor and Beijing Major. About 500 people from local governments attended the ceremony, including SK Innovation President Kim Jun, Chairman of Beijing Motor Company Xue Hei, Chairman of Beijing Wangyan, and Secretary-General Wang Quanan of Changzhou City.

The plant was built on an estimated 160,000 square meters, with an annual 7.5GWh (Gigawatt-hour) capacity of about 150,000 electric vehicles (EV) based on 50kWh (kilowatt-hour) batteries. Together with the existing Seosan plant (4.7GWh), it has a production capacity of about 12.2GWh. Next year, the Hungarian Komarom plant will add up to 19.7 GWh of battery capacity.

The batteries will be supplied to a number of EV companies based in China in addition to Beijing Motors. Kim Joon, CEO of SK Innovation, said, "We have taken the first step in securing global competitiveness in the battery business based on SK Innovation's deep change."

BEST invested a total of 1 billion yuan (KRW 168 billion) in 2013 to establish a joint venture (BEV), a battery joint venture with Beijing Motors, a major in Beijing, with a 49% stake. BEST is a wholly owned subsidiary of BESK. SK Innovation established a joint venture with China's EVE Energy last September. The company decided to build a 20-25 GWh gigawatt-hour battery plant. The investment amounts to SK Innovation's 579.9 billion won and EVE Energy's $ 525 million (620 billion won).