SVOLT expands with a third plant in China
The battery cell manufacturer SVOLT, which emerged from the Chinese carmaker Great Wall, wants to further expand its production capacities in China. Another cell factory is now to be built in Chengdu, which is to have a capacity of 60 GWh in the third expansion stage.
An agreement now signed with the city government of Chengdu, capital of the Chinese province of Sichuan, provides for the construction of a production and research facility that will be built in three phases. The SVOLT site will be located in Jianzhou New Town in the east of Chengdu.
The Chinese news site Gasgoo puts the investment at 22 billion yuan, the equivalent of about 2.9 billion euros. Ten billion yuan (1.32 billion euros) are estimated for the first phase because of the preparatory work on the entire site. The two further expansion stages will then be somewhat cheaper.
So far there is no news on when the third expansion stage is to be reached. It is also unclear which cell chemistry SVOLT wants to produce there. Since the company relies exclusively on pouch cells, at least the format seems clear. But whether it will be the cobalt-free NMx cells or other chemistries with cobalt has not yet been revealed.
It was only in February that SVOLT announced two new plants in China, these are planned for Huzhou in China’s Zhejiang province and Suining in Sichuan province – each with 20 GWh. In June, another factory was announced in the city of Nanjing in the Chinese province of Jiangsu; this plant is to have a capacity of 14.6 GWh.
According to SVOLT CEO Yang Xinhong, the company aims to reach a production capacity of 200 GWh in 2025. So far this year, SVOLT has launched capacity expansion plans of 150 GWh. In November 2020, SVOLT announced plans to build a battery cell factory with a capacity of 24 GWh in Saarland, Germany. Cell production is to start by the end of 2o23, and modules and packs are also to be assembled from the battery cells at another site in Saarland.
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