GAC Group to Set Up Battery Firm for Independent Research

Chinese automotive firm GAC Group announced two important proposals on August 25, including one to set up an independent battery company, and another to allow a company it has invested in to build a battery production base.

The shares of the independent battery company, with total investment of 10.9 billion yuan ($1.59 billion), will be held by GAC AION, GAC Motor and GAC Business, with 51%, 40% and 9% shares respectively. Its first product will reportedly adopt GAC Group’s independent ferrous lithium phosphate technology, which greatly improves the safety of the whole battery package and reduces the number and cost of parts through structural optimization.

According to the plan, construction of the independent battery factory will start at the end of this year, and a 26.8 GWh production line will be built by 2025. In the early stage, the factory’s products will mainly support GAC’s enterprises, although it will later actively expand within external markets.

The total investment of the battery production base built by Greater Bay Technology, a shareholding company of GAC Group, is 3.69 billion yuan. A new battery cell production workshop, pack workshop, R&D test center, trial production workshop, and battery safety laboratory will all be built to produce battery cells, modules and pack systems.

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In 2021, GAC Group launched three original battery technologies: sponge silicon cathode batteries, super-fast charging and magazine battery system safety. This year, a new generation of SmLFP based on microcrystalline technology was released, providing a new direction for power battery solutions.

Relying on the scientific and technological achievements of battery self-research and rich industrialization foundation, GAC Group hopes to speed up the industrialization process of independent batteries.