Supply to Tesla Competitor

An image of a high-end electric sports sedan concept car unveiled by Lucid Motors at the Los Angeles Auto Show last month.
An image of a high-end electric sports sedan concept car unveiled by Lucid Motors at the Los Angeles Auto Show last month.

 

Samsung SDI Co., a battery making unit of South Korea’s largest conglomerate Samsung Group, will be supplying a next-generation cylindrical battery cells to Lucid Motors Inc., an electric vehicle (EV) startup based in the United States. Lucid Motors is considered a competitor to Tesla Motors in the U.S. market, along with Faraday Future and Nikola Motor.

Samsung SDI announced on December 8 that it signed a strategic partnership agreement with Lucid Motors at the Samsung SDI Cheonan Plant on the 2nd to jointly develop EVs using next-generation cylindrical battery cells.

Lucid Motors, formerly known as Atieva, was founded in 2007 as a battery technology company before it shifted focus to producing and selling electric vehicles. The U.S. EV startup announced that it will invest US$700 million (813.4 billion won) to build a manufacturing facility in Arizona that can produce 10,000 electric vehicle units a year.            

Under the deal, Samsung SDI will supply its cylindrical battery cells to Lucid Motors’ high-end electric sports sedan to be unveiled in the second half of 2018. The upcoming car can travel more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) on a single charge and complete the zero to 60 miles (97 kilometers) per hour in just 2.5 seconds.

The battery cell Samsung SDI will be supplying is the 21700 type that is 21 millimeters in diameter and 70 millimeters in length. It has 50 percent more capacity than the previous 18650 type (18 millimeters in diameter and 65 millimeters in length). This is why the new battery cell can reduce production costs when compiling cells to manufacture a pack.

Samsung SDI said that Lucid Motors’ officials visited its battery manufacturing facility in Cheonan, and they were impressed with the production process that can produce 200 cells a minute. Lucid Motors chief technology officer (CTO) Peter Rawlinson said, “A battery is a core component that determines mileage and performance of EVs. Samsung SDI’s cylindrical battery is the most balanced battery cell we have tested so far. When we develop a third-generation battery cell based on such technology in the future, we will be able to lead the market.”

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