Heavy Investment Overseas
LG Magna e-Powertrain, an electric vehicle parts joint venture between Korea’s LG Electronics and Canada’s Magnet International, is continuing to invest heavily in overseas factories in China and Mexico.
LG Magna recently decided to invest 40.7 billion won (US$30.5 million) in its Nanjing production facility in China, according to sources in the automotive electronics industry on Aug. 17. The company began to raise operating funds as its business scale grows with expansion work. This came about a year and two months after the company decided to invest 110 billion won in Nanjing in June 2022.
In addition to the Nanjing plant, LG Magna invested more than 130 billion won in its Mexican production subsidiary currently building a factory on four occasions -- November and December 2022 and March and July this year. The plant is scheduled to go live in September and will produce one million electric vehicle motors per year for corporate customers in North America.
LG Magna was established in July 2021 by splitting off the Green Department under the VS Division of LG Electronics. It focuses on producing motors, inverters, vehicle-mounted chargers, and drive systems for electric vehicles. LG Electronics’ automotive electronics business is led by three players: LG Magna, the VS Division for car infotainment systems, and ZKW for automotive lighting systems.
LG Magna is expected to have a bigger share in LG Electronics’ automotive electronics business. As its main customers are North American automakers such as GM and Ford, it is absorbing the benefits of the expansion of electric vehicles in the region. In 2022, LG Magna’s consolidated sales increased 223.59 percent year-on-year to 866.9 billion won.