Volvo Car Group has revealed that leading battery manufacturers CATL and LG Chem will supply its fleet of next-generation electric vehicles as well as provide the battery modules for its Polestar models.
The OEM announced that it has signed a long-term, multi-billion dollar deal to supply lithium ion batteries over the next decade, further reinforcing the company’s commitment to electrification and its strategy for fully electric cars to comprise 50% of its global sales volume by 2025.
“[With this] agreement we effectively secured our battery supply for the upcoming decade,” said Martina Buchhauser, senior vice president for procurement at Volvo Cars. “By having two suppliers available in each region we also ensure that we have flexibility in our supply chain going forward.”
Both CATL and LG Chem have successfully been supplying the automotive industry with lithium ion batteries for a number of years and being based in China and South Korea respectively, it enables Volvo to spread its supply chain.
Volvo Cars’ first battery assembly line is currently under construction at its manufacturing plant in Ghent, Belgium, and will be finalised by the end of this year. The first fully electric Volvo to be built in Ghent will be the award-winning XC40 small SUV; plug-in hybrid variants of the XC40 are already manufactured there.
