Nissan to Get 100 GWh of US-Made Batteries from SK On

The electric vehicle market is growing everywhere, even in the USA, and various dynamics are encouraging automakers to get their batteries locally in each market more and more. That just makes more sense in the long term anyway, but given the fact that China moved much faster in this arena and has been dominating the EV battery industry, other markets needed a bit of policy support to shift more production locally. In the USA, there were huge subsidies provided under the Inflation Reduction Act, which led to several battery factory announcements and investments in recent years. There were also sticks in there, with consumer subsidies not applying to EVs with batteries produced in China. Now, Biden is gone and Trump is back in office swinging his arms and bloviating about tariffs. So, another thumb is put on the scales encouraging local battery production rather than imports from abroad.

So, it is no surprise at all to learn that Nissan and SK On have just announced a big battery supply agreement for Nissan in North America. SK On is going to supply Nissan with almost 100 GWh of batteries from 2028–2033, all produced in the US.

One interesting element of this that struck me is that SK On is a South Korean firm and Nissan is a Japanese firm and they indicate that this is SK On’s first collaboration with a Japanese automaker! Well, maybe that isn’t too surprising, given that the other major Japanese automakers (Toyota and Honda) have been extreme laggards on EVs and Nissan in-housed battery production for a long time.

Nissan indicates that these will be high-nickel (so, high-performance) batteries. Also, as if the years didn’t hint at that, these will not be used in the company’s LEAF and Ariya models but rather in a next generation of Nissan EVs. Those EVs will also be produced in the US, in Canton, Mississippi.

“This agreement with SK On is a significant milestone for Nissan’s electrification journey and supports further investment in US manufacturing,” said Christian Meunier, Chairman of Nissan Americas. “Through this smart partnership with SK On, we can leverage their growing US production capacity to deliver innovative, high-quality electric vehicles that meet the needs of our customers.”

SK On is expecting to create 1,700 jobs thanks to this partnership, and planning to invest $661 million for it all.

SK On currently operates two battery factories in the US. It is also building 4 more battery factories with partners in the States. All combined, when in full operation, SK On is expecting to have 180 GWh of annual battery production capacity rolling in the US. Of course, that is without taking into account any future battery partnerships — and given the news and the current plans, one would expect more partnerships will be made. There are only a few battery producers larger than SK On — China’s CATL, China’s BYD (mostly producing batteries for itself), and LG Energy Solution, with Samsung SDI and Panasonic typically around a similar level as SK On.

The EV revolution continues to move forward, even in Mississippi.