SK Innovation launches a battery plant in Hungary

SK Innovation, a South Korean energy and chemical company heavily investing in battery industry, held on Thursday (local time) a groundbreaking ceremony of an electric vehicle battery plant in Hungary. The company plans to finish the construction by the latter half of 2019 and undergo test operations and product certification processes before embarking on a mass production and supply of batters for electric vehicles, starting in early 2020.

Worth 783 million U.S. dollars of investment, the plant in Hungary will be built with an annual production capacity at 7.5GWh, spanning 430,000 m² in premises, and construction of the production lines will be finalized by 2020. GWh is a unit for the amount of electric energy.

SK Innovation will produce its third-generation electric vehicle batteries in the new plant in Hungary. Fully charged, the battery will allow vehicles to run about as far as 500 kilometers. Once the construction is over, the Hungary plant will offer SK Innovation a production capacity twice as much as the existing plant in Seosan, Korea (3.9GWh per year).

“Europe is the hub of electric car market where governments and automakers around the world compete for ambitious growth targets,” said Yoon Ye-sun, chief of SK Innovation's Battery and Information/Electronics division. “Our new plant in Hungary will serve as a bridgehead for SK Innovation to grow further in the European e-vehicle market.”

The Thursday ceremony was attended by some 300 guests including Hungarian government officials such as Foreign Minister Szijjártó Péter, SK Group Vice Chairman Chey Jae-won, SK Innovation CEO Kim Jun and guests from clients and partner companies.


Dong-Il Seo dong@donga.com