[OEM] Hyundai opens an EV battery pack plant in India

출처 : BatteryIndustry (2025.1.27)

출처 : BatteryIndustry

Just days after launching its first locally manufactured EV in India, Hyundai has opened an EV battery plant in the country. The manufacturer assembles the battery pack for the new Creta Electric at the factory.

Hyundai built the EV battery plant inside its manufacturing facility in Chennai, a major port city in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The company operates the assembly plant with Mobis, Hyundai Motor Group’s parts and components subsidiary.

The new EV battery plant gives Hyundai and Mobis the flexibility to assemble both LFP and NMC battery packs. Thus, the South Korean automaker can utilise it for a range of models, from the rumoured Inster-inspired electric micro SUV (codename: HE1i) and an electric city car derived from the next-gen i10 (Grand i10 Nios successor) to relatively premium models, including the Creta Electric.

Hyundai and Mobis can assemble 75,000 battery packs at the new factory in the first phase, but they are unlikely to fully utilise the maximum capacity at the moment. According to an Autocar India report, Hyundai will manufacture just around 24,000 units of the Creta Electric annually. The company is unlikely to manufacture any other EV locally before 2026.

While Hyundai assembles the Creta Electric’s battery pack locally, it still relies on imports for the cells. According to Autocar Professional, the company imports the cells from Indonesia, possibly from the joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution – HLI Green Power.

Hyundai uses NMC cells in the Creta Electric’s battery pack, for which it has not set up a local supplier. For LFP cells, though, the company has signed a deal with Exide Energy. The latter is building a gigafactory to manufacture LFP and NMC cells in Bengaluru (Karnataka) and plans to commence production in the middle of this year.