Base for European Market

A bird's-eye view of SK Innovation’s battery factory in Hungary. (The photo courtesy of SK Innovation)
A bird's-eye view of SK Innovation’s battery factory in Hungary. (The photo courtesy of SK Innovation)

 

SK Innovation announced on March 8 (local time) that the company held a groundbreaking ceremony for an EV battery factory in Komarom, Hungary.

This plant is SK Innovation's first European battery manufacturing facility and is expected to play a key role as a bridgehead into the European market.

Approximately 300 people attended the groundbreaking ceremony including officials from the Hungarian government such as Péter Szijjártó, Hungarian minister of foreign affairs, Choi Kyu-shik, Korean ambassador to Hungary and top SK executives such as Chey Jae-won, the SK Group's senior vice chairman and Kim Jun, president of SK Innovation.

SK Innovation finally selected Komaro of Hungary which had the best business potential in terms of location and economic efficiency as home to the plant after reviewing major regions of many Eastern European countries as candidates. Komarom is located in the state of Komarom-Esztergom, about 110 km northwest of Budapest.

Based on long-term supply agreements concluded with European automakers in accordance with strategy to land orders first and expand facilities later, SK Innovation secure a 430,000-square-meter site which is as wide as about 60 football fields combined. The company is planning to invest a total of 840.2 billion won in construction investment and working capital in the form of installment-type investment until 2022.

SK Innovation is planning to start production and supply in earnest in early 2020 after the completion of the plant in the second half of 2019 after the stabilization of the facility, a trial run and product certification. In 2022, when all production lines are completed, electric car batteries of 7.5GWh will be annually produced.

The Hungary plant will produce batteries for a third-generation EV which can run 500km on one charge. In September last year, SK Innovation announced that the company started mass production of mid-sized pouch NCM811 batteries for the first time in the world. As a result, SK Innovation established itself as a world-leading EV battery manufacturer amid the expansion of the pouch-type battery market.

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