South Korea’s To Invest $2.5bn To Build New EV Battery Factory In China

South Korea’s SK Innovation Co Ltd. plans to invest $2.53 billion to build a new electric vehicle (EV) battery factory in China, China’s local government backed Yancheng News reported on Thursday.

SK Innovation’s wholly-owned battery subsidiary SK On, which supplies electric car batteries to Ford Motor Co, Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and Hyundai Motor Co. among others, has battery production sites in the United States, Hungary, China and South Korea.

The company had said in September it planned to build a new battery factory in China with an initial investment of 1.2 trillion won ($1.01 billion).

“SK On has been building (battery) factories in the United States, China and Hungary as a growth strategy after securing battery orders in the global market,” SK On said in a statement.

SK On said last week that it has an order backlog of about 1.6 terawatt hours (TWh) of batteries worth about 220 trillion won, which could power about 23 million electric vehicles.