Hyundai and LG are going to build a $4.3B EV battery plant in the US

South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution (LGES) just announced that they will build a $4.3 billion EV battery plant in the state of Georgia.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding in a signing ceremony today at LGES’s headquarters in Seoul.

The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act offers a $7,500 tax credit for EVs that meet domestic manufacturing requirements – and that includes EV batteries – as well as incentives for companies to build manufacturing hubs for EVs, batteries, and clean energy.

But Hyundai’s EVs, along with Kia and Genesis EV models, currently don’t qualify because they don’t meet those requirements. So the Inflation Reduction Act’s manufacturing incentives have attracted attracted Hyundai Motor Group and LGES to make the latest major industrial investment in Georgia. 

Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who led an April trade mission to South Korea where he met with senior executives from both firms, said in an emailed statement:

When I led a trade delegation to South Korea last month, securing this LG-Hyundai battery investment to Georgia was a key goal. The IRA’s manufacturing incentives continue to bring jobs and investment to Georgia.

According to the Financial Times, Georgia is second in the US, behind South Carolina, in new investments from the IRA’s manufacturing incentives.

The two companies will 50/50 jointly open a new EV battery plant in Bryan County, south of Savannah. It will be adjacent to Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America, currently under construction.

The annual production capacity of Hyundai and LG’s new battery plant is at 30 GWh, and it will be able to support the production of 300,000 EVs annually.

Construction will start in the second half of 2023, and battery production is expected to start at the new Bryan County facility at the end of 2025 at the earliest. The investment is expected to create 3,000 jobs. 

Including today’s announcement, LGES now has seven battery plants currently operating or being constructed in the US, where it’s concentrating most of its resources to expand production capacity.

Photo: Hyundai