SK Innovation To Supply Electric Car Batteries To BAIC

Posted on April 26, 2020 by Design in Design Innovation | 0 Comments

According to the latest news, SK Innovation was selected by the Beijing Automotive Group (BAIC) as a battery supplier for a new electric car, scheduled for market launch in China in the second half of 2020.

The lithium-ion cell will be produced at SK Innovation’s first plant in Changzhou, China, which has a production capacity of 7.5 GWh annually.

The plant is owned by BEST, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BESK (a joint venture between SK Innovation, which holds 49%, and Beijing Automotive Group and Beijing Electronics). It’s no surprise here that BAIC is placing an order for batteries from its own joint venture with SK.

Previous and new reports indicate that the battery deal is for the high-end Arcfox Mark 5, which is expected to get a range of up to 500 km (311 miles) NEDC.

The cells supplied by SK Innovation will be NCM 811, the low cobalt chemistry, which quickly gains market share in China over other types of NCM.

It will be interesting to see whether SK Innovation will switch from NCM 622 to a NCM 811 chemistry also in other markets.