Volkswagen has selected South Korean battery manufacturer SK Innovation as another strategic supplier for electric vehicles. The company will supply batteries for North America and parts of Europe.
MEB platform for full-electric Volkswagen models
Volkswagen
South Korean battery manufacturer SK Innovation (SKI) will supply battery cells for electric vehicles from the Volkswagen Group. SKI will supply batteries for full-electric vehicles based on the Modular Electric Toolkit (MEB) for North America and parts of Europe. "Together with our suppliers, we will ensure that the rapidly growing electric fleet of the Volkswagen Group receives the best possible batteries – in all the variants we need to meet customer-specific and market-specific requirements. This lays the foundation for the transformation of the Volkswagen Group towards e-mobility", says Dr. Stefan Sommer, Group Board Member responsible for Components and Procurement at VW.
As part of its "Roadmap E", VW plans to produce 50 full-electric vehicles by 2025. According to Volkswagen, this is equivalent to a battery capacity of over 150 GWh a year, and an annual capacity of at least four "Gigafactories" for battery cells. By 2019, Volkswagen will have LG Chem, Samsung and SKI as its suppliers for Europe, while CATL will provide batteries for electric vehicles in China.