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Dive brief:
- Electric vehicle battery cell maker AESC plans to spend $1.5 billion to expand its lithium-ion battery manufacturing site in Florence County, South Carolina, the company announced Tuesday.
- The BMW supplier will build a second battery production facility for electric vehicles and create an additional 1,080 jobs. Operations are expected to begin in 2027.
- The new facility will supply BMW’s assembly operations in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, where the automaker will build the next generation of its Neue Klasse EV model starting in 2027.
Diving knowledge:
The latest investment is AESC’s second expansion announcement in four months as it expands its partnership with the electric vehicle battery supplier with BMW, which began in 2022.
The second building will be the neighbor of AESC’s large-scale battery cell production facility, which opened in June 2023. The battery cell facility is currently under construction and AESC announced plans in December to invest an additional $810 million to expand the facility and add 450 jobs.
The large-scale factory will supply BMW’s battery assembly plant in Woodruff, South Carolina, and will be used in the production of electric vehicles at its assembly plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The battery cells are expected to deliver 20% more energy density, as well as reduce charging time and increase range and efficiency by 30%, according to a press release on 12 of December
“South Carolina is a crucial part of our strategy to power next-generation electric vehicles for U.S. customers by locally manufacturing high-performance, longer-range electric vehicle batteries,” said CEO of AESC Shoichi Matsumoto in Tuesday’s announcement.
AESC, based in Japan, has been expanding its footprint in the US to support other EV manufacturers in addition to BMW. In September, the company announced that its battery cell gigafactory in Bowling Green, Kentucky, was on track to open early next year. The 30-gigawatt-hour plant will produce battery cells and modules that will power electric vehicles for several automakers, according to the September 2023 press release.
AESC is also adding its own suppliers in North America. In October 2023, the battery maker signed a supply agreement with battery material maker Umicore.
Starting in 2026, the company will supply AESC with cathode active components from Umicore’s Cheonan, South Korea factory. AESC will then receive additional supplies from Umicore’s facility in Ontario, Canada, which is currently under construction.
