SVOLT, the battery cell manufacturer that emerged from the Chinese carmaker Great Wall, has begun setting up a plant in Thailand for the assembly of battery modules and packs for electric and hybrid cars. Completion is scheduled for this year.
According to the portal CN EV Post, two production lines are planned – one for the production of battery modules and one for battery pack assembly with an annual capacity of 60,000 units. SVOLT will supply the batteries to existing customers such as Great Wall Motor and Hozon, but is also negotiating with potential new customers in Thailand.
The plant will not be built from scratch, but a locally leased facility will be converted. This also explains the short phase between the current start of construction and the planned completion in six months at the latest. The battery modules produced in Thailand are to be used in full hybrids, PHEVs and battery-electric vehicles.
SVOLT itself does not name an investment sum, according to the portal, but the local medium Cailian reportedly mentioned an investment sum of 30 million dollars last month.
The company currently has eleven production sites in China and is planning five battery cell factories in Europe. In total, the company aims to have a production capacity of at least 50 gigawatt-hours in Europe by the end of the decade.
SVOLT has already announced two sites in Germany, one of which will supply Stellantis from 2025. The conversion of an existing plant into a 12-gigawatt facility in Lauchhammer, Brandenburg, is currently underway. The start of construction of an announced 2-billion-euro factory in Saarland was recently postponed to at least 2027 due to local protests. At least SVOLT signed the lease for its future factory for the assembly of battery modules and packs at the Heusweiler site in Saarland in December. However, this does not fall under the potential five production sites in Europe where cells are to come off the production line.
Separately, SVOLT unveiled a battery pack innovation shortly before the end of the year that is designed to provide increased safety and enable greater range. The new ‘Dragon Armor Battery‘ has been available for pre-order worldwide since December and is expected to be used in the first production models in 2023. As with BYD’s Blade battery and CATL’s Qilin battery, SVOLT’s Dragon Armor Battery is not a new cell chemistry with higher energy density, but a newly designed battery pack. Depending on the chemistry of the cells used in the Dragon Armor Battery, ranges of over 800 kilometres (LFP) to over 1,000 kilometres (NCM) should be possible.
Keyword: SVOLT is setting up a battery assembly facility in Thailand