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Home | Green Cars News | Business | Bosch Samsung Joint Venture for Lithium-Ion Batteries Starts Operations

Bosch Samsung Joint Venture for Lithium-Ion Batteries Starts Operations

01 September, 2008 09:05:00

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SB LiMotive Co. Ltd., Bosch and Samsung SDI joint venture for lithium-ion batteries has started its operations on September 1, 2008.

In June, Bosch and Samsung have announced plans to form joint venture to develop, manufacture, and sell lithium-ion batteries.

Last month, Bosch and Samsung SDI won approval from the EU Commission on to form a hybrid electric vehicle battery joint venture to boost their presence in the next-generation lithium-ion battery business.

The new company will develop, manufacture, and sell lithium-ion batteries for automotive applications. It is planned to start series manufacturing of highly efficient lithium-ion battery systems customized to automotive requirements and to market them worldwide in 2011.

To achieve this, the joint venture partners will jointly invest between 300 and 400 million dollars in the next five years. The new company will be led by Youngwoo Park (Samsung SDI), who will be in charge of finance, production, sales, and purchasing, and Dr. Joachim Fetzer (Bosch), who will be responsible for engineering and quality.

SB LiMotive is headquartered in Suwon, South Korea. This will also apply initially to battery cell development. Further, initial production of lithium-ion cells is also planned in Korea. Roughly 100 associates will be located there. In Germany, a subsidiary based in Stuttgart will be established. At first, 40 associates will work there in sales, marketing and system engineering. The location of the manufacturing sites for battery systems will be announced at a later date.

Bosch and Samsung expect a market volume of some three million hybrid vehicles by 2015.

[source: Bosch]

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