South Korean battery giant signs 7-year deal

On October 23, Samsung SDI announced that it had signed an electric vehicle battery supply contract with Hyundai Motor Company and will supply batteries to Hyundai Motor’s next-generation European battery vehicles for seven years from 2026 to 2032.

It is reported that this is the first battery supply contract signed between Samsung SDI and Hyundai Motor. It will supply the sixth-generation prismatic battery P6 under development to Hyundai Motor.

Samsung SDI said that P6 achieves "high energy density" by increasing the proportion of nickel in the cathode material NCA (nickel, cobalt, aluminum) to 91% and applying the company's proprietary SCN (silicon carbon nanocomposite) technology. and "quick charging " performance. P6 batteries will be produced at Samsung SDI's Hungarian factory and then supplied to Hyundai Motor's European factories.

However, Samsung SDI did not announce the scale of this cooperation.

Very optimistic about the prospects of cooperation

Public data shows that in the first half of this year, the Hyundai-Kia Group's cumulative global sales reached 3.6573 million vehicles, ranking third after Toyota and Volkswagen. Among them, Hyundai sales were 2.0815 million units and Kia sales were 1.5759 million units.

The current trend of electrification transformation among global car companies is unstoppable, and Hyundai Motor Group has great ambitions in the field of electrification. According to the medium- and long-term electrification strategy, the sales target of 2 million pure electric vehicles will be achieved by 2030 ; 100% electric vehicles will be launched in key markets by 2040; and 100% carbon emission reduction will be achieved by 2045, including supply chains and factories. Neutralize the target.

At present, Hyundai Motor's dedicated platform for electric vehicles is the platform released in 2020 - E-GMP, with batteries mainly supplied by LG New Energy and SK On. Based on this platform, Hyundai Motor has launched a new pure electric brand - IONIQ. The current sales of this series of models in overseas markets have exceeded 100,000 units.

In terms of models, in addition to the already launched IONIQ5 and IONIQ6 models, the large SUV IONIQ7 will be launched in early 2024. In addition, the first high-performance electric vehicle IONIQ 5N based on the high-performance N brand was released in July this year and is planned to be introduced to the Chinese market next year.

In order to ensure the smooth advancement of the electric strategy and the matching of vehicle models, Hyundai Motor has already started operations to ensure supply. This year, it reached joint venture agreements with SK On and LG New Energy, and will invest US$5 billion and US$4.3 billion respectively to build one in the United States. The battery factories have annual production capacities of 35GWh and 30GWh respectively.

In this regard, the cooperation with Samsung SDI is also expected. In addition, Weike Lithium Battery noticed that as early as May 2020, Lee Jae-yong, the actual leader of Samsung Group, and Chung Eui-sun, chief vice chairman of Hyundai Motor, met individually for the first time at Samsung SDI’s Cheonan factory, which aroused great concern in the Korean economic circle. focus on.

It is reported that at that time, the top executives of the two companies exchanged opinions on the new generation of power battery technology, including the development status and future direction of all-solid-state batteries.

After more than three years, Samsung SDI finally reached cooperation with Hyundai Motor. Samsung SDI is particularly optimistic about this cooperation. Samsung SDI said that through this cooperation, it not only gained a new customer, Hyundai Motor, but also provided opportunities for future cooperation expansion, thus gaining new growth momentum. At the same time, this cooperation is expected to become an important inflection point in increasing the adoption rate of prismatic batteries. In addition, the two companies plan to continue their cooperative relationship in the future, including actively developing next-generation battery platforms.

Samsung SDI customer circle continues to expand

In fact, Hyundai Motor is Samsung SDI’s second new car giant customer this year.

On April 25 this year, General Motors and Samsung SDI jointly announced that the two parties planned to invest more than US$3 billion to build a new battery manufacturing plant in the United States, with an annual production capacity of more than 30GWh. It is expected to produce nickel-rich prismatic and cylindrical batteries, with the goal of Start operations in 2026. The two companies will form a joint venture to be responsible for implementation.

So far, Samsung SDI’s main customers include Stellantis, Ford, BMW, Volkswagen (Audi), Hyundai Motor and new American forces Rivian, Lucid, etc.

In addition to the newly reached production capacity cooperation, Samsung SDI and its old partner Stellantis just announced on October 11 that they will set up a second electric vehicle battery factory in Kokomo, Indiana, USA. The plant will still be operated by StarPlus Energy, a joint venture between the two parties, with an annual production capacity of 34GWh. Production will begin in early 2027, with a total investment of more than US$3.2 billion.

As a result, the annual production capacity of the two battery factories cooperated by Stellantis and Samsung SDI will reach 67GWh, and the total investment will exceed US$6.3 billion.

Adhere to the high-end strategy and create a diversified product matrix

Samsung SDI's previous positioning was to focus on high-end batteries, and its main products were high-nickel ternary batteries. However, according to BusinessKorea, during a conference call in July this year, Sohn Michael, vice president of Samsung SDI’s medium and large battery division and head of the strategic marketing team, said that as part of the vehicle electrification strategy, automakers are focusing on segmentation like traditional fuel vehicles. Various electric vehicle models are launched in different markets, and automotive batteries also need to be segmented to cope with various platforms.

Sohn Michael said that Samsung SDI will not give up its high-end strategy, but the company hopes to achieve a broader product portfolio by developing high-quality NCA and high-end high-quality all-solid-state batteries, as well as entry-level NMX (nickel manganese oxide) and LFP technologies.

Subsequently, at the "IAA Mobility 2023" in September, Samsung SDI showed a new generation product lineup and high-quality battery products in the battery brand PRiMX area, including all-solid-state batteries, 46-pi cylindrical batteries (cylindrical batteries with a diameter of 46 mm) , NMX (nickel manganese oxide) and LMFP (lithium, manganese, iron, phosphate).

However, currently all-solid-state batteries and 46-pi cylindrical batteries are the key development directions of Samsung SDI.

In terms of all-solid-state batteries, on March 14, 2022, Samsung SDI announced that it had begun construction of an all-solid-state battery pilot line (S line) at the SDI Research Center in Gyeonggi Province. The construction area of ​​the test line is approximately 6,500 square meters. It is reported that the pilot line is the industry's first pure all-solid-state battery production line. Samsung SDI plans to complete the construction of the all-solid-state battery pilot line in the first half of this year and start producing prototypes.

In terms of 46-pi cylindrical batteries, according to the quarterly report released by Samsung SDI in August, the 46-series cylindrical batteries have set up a production line, achieved performance targets earlier than originally planned, and have begun to provide battery samples to customers.

However, Samsung SDI has not announced specific specifications, nor has it announced what specific performance targets include.

Currently, Tesla is developing and using the 4680 battery (height 80mm), and BMW has announced that it will use two battery specifications, 4695 and 46120.

In addition, it was previously reported that Samsung SDI plans to expand two production lines to assemble circular batteries at its Hungarian battery factory, with an annual production capacity of 10GWh. These two production lines will be used to assemble 46120 batteries for BMW, and Samsung SDI will also produce 4680 and 4695 batteries in this factory.

Exactly what the performance and specifications of Samsung SDI cylindrical batteries are, more information will be released in the future.