LG Energy Solution and Toyota are expected to finalize their collaboration on supplying electric car batteries in the US.
The South Korean battery maker already has a battery joint venture with another Japanese automobile giant Honda.
Sources said if LG Energy Solution takes a similar route with Toyota, their pair will likely spend around 3 trillion won to build a battery plant with an annual capacity of 20GWh.
In March during its shareholders’ meeting, LG Energy Solution CEO Kwon Young-soo had told shareholders that the company’s collaboration with Toyota was going well.
Winning Toyota, which competes with Volkswagen for the top spot in the automobile market, will be a huge win.
Toyota already has a battery joint venture with Panasonic though this seems to be aimed at servicing its domestic market.
With LG Energy Solution, it will consider various battery platforms, from pouch, prismatic to cylinder.
Honda mostly uses pouch while Toyota had preferred prismatic and cylinder batteries; its joint venture with Panasonic, Prime Planet Energy, mainly makes prismatic batteries.
Toyota is aiming to secure 280GWh in battery production capacity by spending 2 trillion yen by 2030.
Out of this total, 40GWh of this has been earmarked for Japan and the US by 2026.
