Vietnam’s Vingroup Cooperates with Gotion High-Tech to Build Battery Factory
Vingroup, the largest private enterprise group in Vietnam, issued a statement on November 18 announcing that the joint venture factory between VinES Energy Solutions, its battery manufacturing and R&D company, and Gotion High-Tech, a Chinese battery manufacturer, broke ground. The JV will produce lithium iron phosphate batteries which will be mainly used for electric vehicle’s energy storage systems.
The project has a total investment of nearly 6.33 trillion Vietnamese dong ($275 million), covers an area of 14 hectares, and has a designed annual production capacity of 5GWh. It is expected that large-scale production will start in the third quarter of 2024, and it will become the first lithium iron phosphate battery factory in Vietnam.
On August 27 last year, Gotion High-Tech reached an agreement with Vietnamese automaker VinFast, a subsidiary of Vingroup. The two companies agreed to cooperate in the R&D of lithium iron phosphate batteries for pure electric vehicles. At that time, they discussed the possibility of establishing a battery factory in Vietnam.
Among VinFast’s models on sale, the VF8 and VF9 support battery rentals. VinFast also signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation with CATL, another battery manufacturer in China, on October 31 this year, and the two sides will work together on integrated intelligent chassis and other projects.
Vingroup is Vietnam’s largest conglomerate and focuses on technology, industry, real estate, retail, and services ranging from healthcare to hospitality services. VinFast is the first independent automobile brand in Vietnam, and its products include electric scooters, buses, vehicles and charging stations.
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VinFast acquired General Motor’s production line in Vietnam in 2018. In 2020, it ranked among the top five in Vietnam’s automobile sales list, and in December 2021, it completed the first batch of electric vehicles. Since March this year, it has begun to explore the global market by investing $2 billion to build an automobile factory and submitting an application for listing in the United States. It is expected to be listed in the fourth quarter of this year. Its goal is to sell 750,000 vehicles in 2026, of which 150,000 will be made in North Carolina and the rest in Vietnam.