Under a new supply contract worth about $18.7 billion, LG Chem will supply  General Motors (GM) with over 500,000 tonnes of cathode materials from its new plant in Tennessee between 2026 and 2035. This equates to powering 5 million units of high-performance pure electric vehicles (EVs) with a range of 500 km on a single charge.

Korea’s LG Chem has broken ground on a nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminium cathode materials facility on a 170 hectare site in Clarksville, Tennessee. Starting in 2026, this will supply 60,000 tonnes/year of battery materials, enough for about 600,000 electric vehicles, and will be the largest of its type in the US.

Three South Korean conglomerates have announced major investments into battery materials in the past month, in anticipation of projected market growth from under €30 billion/year in 2021 to nearer €75 billion in 2026. SK Materials is to build a lithium-silicon battery materials, while Posco Chemical will build a cathode materials plant and LG Chem has even bigger, longer-term plans.