Jung-hee Kim, Gounee Yang Global Economic News SOUTH KOREAN battery companies are actively expanding their investments in the North American electric vehicle (EV) battery market to cash in on its high growth potential. LG Energy Solution has announced it will build two additional EV battery plants in North America. The plants to be constructed are a joint venture with Stellantis in Canada and its sole Arizona plant in the United States. Combined with its existing four plants in the United States, the additional LG Energy Solution plants will realize an annual production capacity of more than 200GWh in North America, and can support the production of about 2.5 million pure EVs each with a 500km drive range. SK On plans to reach a capacity of more than 150GWh in North America by 2025. Blue Oval SK, a joint venture between SK On and Ford, will build a plant with a capacity of 129GWh. In addition, SK On has completed its first Georgia plant and plans to soon build its second plant. Samsung SDI entered the U.S. market last year. Samsung SDI has partnered with Stellantis to produce 23GWh of EV battery cells and modules per year from the first half of 2025. The two companies also plan to expand the capacity to 40GWh in the future. Currently, the three Korean battery makers account for about 10% of the battery production capacity in the U.S. According to the market research firm IHS, the size of the North American EV battery market is expected to grow 58% annually from 46GWh last year to 143GWh in 2023 and 286GWh in 2025. | 