• V8-Turbo-Hybrid@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Meanwhile, CATL is expending their business. They will built their battery factory in Europe with STLA.

    Sounds not good for LG, SK, and Panasonic, they would be hard to catch CATL.

    • scrubdiddlyumptious@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      bruh… LG, SK, and Panasonic shouldn’t even bother with being concerned about catching up to CATL at this point. It’s clearly a lost cause.

      The market share of all those 3 companies combined is still lower than CATL’s. (With the Korean manufacturers having a shoddy track record with their batteries anyways).

      They should be more concerned about the gap widening between them and the #2 manufacturer (BYD). None of them even have LFP up and running yet meanwhile CATL and BYD are already well-entrenched with that tech… and leagues ahead regarding sodium-ion tech.

  • SPorterBridges@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    Tim Bush, a Seoul-based battery analyst for UBS, said legacy carmakers Ford and GM bear the greatest responsibility for the slump in demand.

    Oh schnap, oh schnap.

    “LG is relatively better positioned because they’re reprioritising investment towards Hyundai and Tesla, which are making vehicles that actually people want to buy and doing so profitably,” said Bush.

    Tell it, sister.

  • AeFip@alien.top
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    1 year ago

    I feel like battery tech has stalled. They were suppose to get lighter and longer ranger. All the Tesla fan boys raved about their battery tech being 5 years ahead of everyone else… yeah no.

  • Doppelkupplungs@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    do they only produce batteries for EVs? Because if they produce batteries for other shit and sector, they can shift around personnel

    • South_Library3744@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      A lot of the time, they do give employees that option but the employees usually can’t just move to a completely different area.

    • SimpleImpX@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Doubtful that they will have huge demand problem. They are still expanding the plant 5x output while making it more automated and even then it’s only good for ~300K BEVs/year. The layoffs and reduced staff are due to on going retooling and expected increased automation nothing more.

      Sure could argue LG might have bit of a intermediate customer problem with their biggest NA customers having failed to gain significant EV market share in NA. Same deal as with the second plant in Kentucky (the joint venture with Ford). One good contract and they are back to being undersized, but the chances are when the expansion is finished they will be fine as is.

      And that’s without considering non-BEV usages like you mentioned. It’s simply still too small and the projected future lithium battery demand is too high for this to fail even though certain automakers might slip up I have no doubt that LG will find uses for that capacity with ease. Its a FUD article.

      • leeta0028@alien.topOPB
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        1 year ago

        It’s LG’s statement, not FT’s:

        LG is laying off works and reducing capacity for to “automakers realigning the speed of the EV transition.”