South Korea’s battery maker SK Innovation Co. will begin mass production of battery cells for electric vehicles early next year at its newly built plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, the company’s first overseas manufacturing base for EV battery cells.

SK Innovation said Thursday it has finished construction of the battery line and held a ceremony to celebrate the opening. The company has partnered with China’s Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings (BAIC) and Beijing Electronics Holding to build the plant dubbed BEST.

The tape-cutting event was attended by 500 company officials including SK Innovation CEO Kim Jun, BAIC Group Chairman Xu Heyi, and Secretary of the Changzhou Municipal Party Committee Wang Quan, according to the company.

The BEST plant commanding a space of 168,000 square meters in Changzhou will have a full capacity of 7.5 gigawatt-hours to power 150,000 electric vehicles per year when fully operational. SK Innovation used its advanced battery production technologies as well as its smart factory building skills applied to the Seosan plant in South Chungcheong Province, Korea.

The company aims to start mass production at the new plant early next year after test operation and product approvals.

With the new plant, SK Innovation’s annual output expands to 12.2 GWh per year, a capacity to power 250,000 electric vehicles. Another manufacturing line with an annual output of 7.5 GWh is under construction in Hungary. Once they all become operational after 2022, SK Innovation’s combined annual capacity will reach 19.7 GWh, closer to its long-term target of 100 GWh for 2050.

The joint venture was set up at 1 billion Chinese yuan ($839,717) in 2013, together with the BAIC group and Beijing Electronics Holding. The BEST factory is a subsidiary of the joint-venture, of which 49 percent is owned by SK Innovation and the remaining 51 percent by the other two Chinese firms.

“The new plant will help raise the corporate value of SK Innovation and further boost more cooperation with local players for co-development of two countries’ EV and battery related industries,” said Kim Jun, CEO of SK Innovation.

By Won Ho-sup and Lee Ha-yeon

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