South Korea’s automaking conglomerate Hyundai Motor has gained a meaningful lead in power ammunition in future mobility as its head meets with his counterpart from SK Group this week to achieve partnership front with all three battery majors from the country’s top business groups – Samsung, LG and SK.

Chung Euisun, de facto leader Hyundai Motor Group, will meet with SK Group chair Chey Tae-won on Tuesday to discuss ways to strengthen ties for electric vehicle battery development after his similar meetings with heirs of Samsung Group and LG Group.

According to industry sources on Sunday, Chung is fine-tuning the schedule for a meeting with Chey at SK Innovation’s battery factory in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province. They will tour the EV battery manufacturing lines and discuss the development of next-generation battery technology at SK Group’s key battery production base with an annual capacity of 4.7 gigawatt-hours (GWh).

Chung’s meeting with Chey comes after his one-on-one get-togethers with the two heads of the country’s No. 1 and No. 4 business groups to discuss cooperation on EV battery business. He had a symbolic get-together with Samsung Electronics’ Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee, who is also de-facto leader of Samsung Group, in May and then held a tete-a-tete with LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo in June to forge battery partnership.

During the rare meeting with Chey, Chung is expected to seek for stable supply of EV batteries and continued partnership with SK for collaboration in the future mobility sector, such as for next-generation batteries such as long-life battery, lithium-sulfur battery and solid-state battery.

Hyundai Motor earlier picked SK Innovation as the first supplier for its upcoming electric models built on its proprietary EV-dedicated platform dubbed electric-global modular platform (E-GMP). Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors are readying their EV-specific platform for mass production from 2021, and the battery packs in the new underpinning frame assigned to SK Innovation are valued at an estimated 10 trillion won ($8.35 billion) in total.

The meeting between Chung and Chey also will help further enhance partnership between the two family-owned corporate empires in new business areas, industry insiders expect.

Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors earlier announced to expand their EV lineup to 44 by 2025, of which 23 are all-electric vehicles. Hyundai Motor is aiming to sell 560,000 electric cars in 2025 with the third largest share in the global market, and Kia Motors is targeting to expand its EV share to 6.6 percent in 2025 from 2.1 percent in 2019.

By Kang Gye-man, Won Ho-sup and Lee Ha-yeon

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