Samsung to build battery gigafactory in Hungary
The 330,000sq m plant in Goed, north of Budapest, Hungary, is the third for Samsung SDI alongside plants in Ulsan, Korea and Xian, China. Starting commercial production in the second half of 2018, the €320m ($358m) investment in the plant will achieve an annual capacity of batteries for 50,000 pure electric vehicles. The two other plants currently support production for 90,000 vehicles.
The plant was orignially built in 2001 to manufacture cathode ray tubes (CRTs) and remodeled it for PDP production several years later.
The investment comes in response to demand from European car makers with production in Central and eastern Europe, significantly reducing logistic costs. It will also allow Samsung to sharpen its competitive edge in automotive battery industry by establishing integrated production system ranging from battery cells to packs, working with SDI Battery Systems, Austria, which it acquired last year to be the production base of battery packs.
BMZ has already built a battery gigafactory for electric vehicles in Karlstein, Germany, currently with 4,800 sq m. To give an indication of the scal eof the Samsung development, BMZ plans four further production, laboratory and office buildings covering a total space of 15,000 sq m by 2020 on the 55,000 sq m site. This will produce 800 million lithium-ion batteries with an overall storage capacity of 30 GWh.
“By launching construction for the plant in Hungary, we now can set up the global triangular production structure for electric vehicle batteries. We can especially provide higher quality services to European customers in Europe by generating synergy with SDIBS.” said Executive Vice President Jeong SehWoong & Head of Automotive & ESS Business division at Samsung SDI.
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