It’s the first manufacturer to announce mass production of this new battery technology for electric cars.
LG promises this tech will be up to 30% cheaper to produce and 15% smaller.
LG is getting ready to take a step forward in the field of electric car batteries. CATL’s reign and Chinese dominance are evident, but the South Korean manufacturer has an ace up its sleeve to try to compete with them. And it has already set a date to make it happen.
Ready for total production in 2028. Kim Je-Young, the CTO of LG Energy Solution, confirmed the date to Bloomberg during an interview at the company’s headquarters. The manufacturer will test the new batteries on the production line by the end of this year. Full-scale production will start in 2028.
This is the first time LG has set a date on what specialists expect to be the next big generation of electric car batteries.
Dry coating. LG’s battery technology is still based on lithium and has an anode and a cathode. The base doesn’t change, but the way the South Korean company manufactures it does.
This dry coating technology makes it possible to manufacture the electrodes without wetting and drying them. So, it eliminates a very costly step in terms of energy and chemical solvents.
Up to 30% cheaper and 15% smaller. LG isn’t the only company exploring this technology. Volkswagen AG and PowerCO also develop batteries using the dry coating and claim it’s a true revolution.
According to PowerCO, this technology has the potential to save 30% of energy, which in practice means 30% in cost savings. It also states that it requires 15% less space to manufacture it, a number that Bloomberg has increased to 50%. Whatever the final percentages, the leap is significant.
And fewer demands on factories. While the current manufacturing of batteries requires huge ovens and toxic solvents, the dry coating method eliminates this part of the process, allowing battery factories much more space.
10 years of research to achieve what Tesla didn’t. The time may not be the best. In 2019, Tesla bought the manufacturer Maxwell Technologies for $219 million, precisely to use the dry coating technology with its 4680 batteries. However, Elon Musk’s company failed to get it off the ground.
According to Kim, LG started this research “10 years ago.” Despite the time it took to develop this technology, the South Korean company now claims to be ready to move into the mass production phase.
In addition to Tesla, companies such as CATL, Panasonic, and Svolt are working on developing this technology for their batteries. However, LG has made a long-awaited announcement: There’s finally a production date.
Image | LG
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