Samsung and Bosch to put $409 million into SB LiMotive battery plant
SB Li Motive, the Bosch Samsung lithium ion battery joint venture, has announced that it will put $409 million into its manufacturing facilities over the next five years. The company has big plans, hoping to grab nearly a third of the automotive battery market by mid-decade. Bosch is the biggest automotive supplier in the world and produces parts for almost every automaker. However, SB LiMotive is competing with quite a few companies in the lithium battery space, many of which are partnered with automakers such as Panasonic EV Energy (Toyota), Automotive Energy Supply Corp (Nissan), GS Yuasa (Mitsubishi, Honda) and LG Chem (General Motors).
The new SB LiMotive plant is being built in Ulsan South Korea and production is expected to start in 2011. The first automaker to publicly announce a deal with SB LiMotive is BMW which will use its batteries in an upcoming electric vehicle.
[Source: Automotive News - sub req'd]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jpm 6:20PM (9/11/2009)
woot
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Cthulhugus 6:25PM (9/11/2009)
This is what the electric car movement needs more of. A seasoned company with the manufacturing and supply network already developed using them to create a mature product. The name recognition and reputation can only help to spur more mainstream adoption. The more batteries being produced the cheaper the implementation for manufacturers and thus cheaper EVs. Companies that are battery agnostic like Tesla might be interested.
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Greenblogger 6:58PM (9/11/2009)
This is the same company that just cut 40 experienced engineers from it's Orion, Michigan facility. That's nearly one third of all the people at the entire facility folks. Oh yeah, from what I heard, little to no management was on the hit list. Three weeks before the SB LiMotive VP personally asked all the Orion employees to stop leaving for other jobs and just wait for the management team to get a plan together.
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Eugene 7:02PM (9/11/2009)
what upcoming vehicle 2011are they talking about? the Mini-E?
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Greenblogger 7:04PM (9/11/2009)
BMW MegaCity
Mark Kiernan 8:09PM (9/11/2009)
Companies like Bosch need to jump on board with EV components or be left behind. They make money now on serviceable parts but I am sure they can also supply EV parts.
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