Posted Jul 24, 2023, 7:22 AM
(Updated with details, context)
July 24 (Reuters) – French-Italian carmaker Stellantis and South Korean battery maker Samsung SDI said on Monday plans to jointly open a second electric vehicle battery plant in the United States, which is expected to start production in 2027.
The two groups specified that the transaction had yet to be finalized and that the location of the site was still under study. The amount of the investment and the number of people who will be employed there will be announced later, they added.
“This new plant will help achieve our ambitious goal of bringing at least 25 new electric vehicles to the North American market by the end of the decade,” Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares said in a statement.
This gigafactory, with an initial annual production capacity of 34 GWh per year, will be the manufacturer’s sixth battery factory.
The group with 14 brands – including Peugeot, Jeep, Ram, Alfa Romeo, Citroën and Opel – intends to market 100% of its new cars in Europe by 2030 with electric motors, and 50% of its cars and pick-ups in the United States. For this, it needs around 400 GWh of battery generation capacity.
Sellantis had announced in 2021 that it planned to inject $35 billion into electric vehicle production and software across the world through 2025.
“This second plant will allow us to accelerate our deployment in the American market,” said Yoon-ho Choi, president of Samsung SDI.
In May 2022, Stellantis and Samsung SDI announced that they would invest more than 2.5 billion dollars to build their first joint battery factory, which will open in the first quarter of 2025 in Kokomo, in the American state of Indiana, with an initial capacity of 23 GWh to be increased later to 33 GWh.
This site, where the investment will be gradually increased to 3.1 billion dollars, will employ 1,400 people, the two partners said.
Stellantis is also building a battery factory in Windsor, in the Canadian state of Ontario, with the South Korean LG Energy Solution, which should open in 2024, create 2,500 jobs and produce more than 45 GWh of batteries per year.
These three North American sites are in addition to the three gigafactories launched by Stellantis in Europe, in the North of France, in Germany and in Italy.
In the United States, the Auto Workers union has opened negotiations with the manufacturer born of the merger between PSA and FCA on a new social contract for some of the group’s employees in the United States.
He also wants people working for the battery joint ventures of Stellantis, but also General Motors and Ford Motor, to benefit from union representation and higher wages. (Ben Klayman in Detroit and Heekyong Yang in Seoul, with Gilles Guillaume in Paris)
2023-07-24 05:22:03
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