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[Alpha Biz=(Chicago) Reporter Kim Jisun] LG Chem signed its first cathode material supply contract with Toyota, the world's No. 1 automobile company.
The amount is enough to make batteries for approximately 600,000 to 700,000 high-performance pure electric vehicles and will be used for Toyota's own battery production project in North America.
LG Chem announced on the 10th that it signed a contract to supply cathode materials worth 2.8 trillion won with TEMA, the North American production and technology subsidiary of Toyota Motor Company. The product supply period is until 2030. According to the industry, the contract volume is enough to produce about 600,000 to 700,000 high-performance pure electric vehicles that can drive more than 500 km on a single charge.
This is the first time that LG Chem supplies cathode materials to Toyota. Toyota announced an electrification plan to invest 8 trillion yen (about 72 trillion won) by 2030 to produce 30 types of electric vehicles and its own batteries and sell 3.5 million electric vehicles per year.
LG Chem is expanding its cathode material suppliers, which have been focused on LG Energy Solutions and its joint ventures, to external sources. Through this, we plan to increase the proportion of external suppliers from the current 3% to 40% by 2030.
The anode material is a core material that accounts for 40% of the battery price and plays a role in determining battery capacity and voltage. LG Chem plans to increase its annual cathode material production capacity from 120,000 tons this year to 470,000 tons in 2028. To this end, we plan to expand our production base beyond the Cheongju plant in Korea and the Wuxi plant in China to new regions such as the United States and Europe. A representative example is the plan to build a cathode material plant in Tennessee, USA, concluded early this year. More than 4 trillion won will be poured into this plant alone to secure an annual production capacity of 120,000 tons, the largest for a single plant.
In addition, the company recently decided to establish a 50,000-ton LFP cathode material plant in Morocco and is also considering building a cathode material plant in Europe.
AlphaBIZ 김지선(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
