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Stellantis (STLA) & Samsung Form a JV for $2.5B Battery Plant

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Stellantis (STLA - Free Report) has been revving up its electric vehicle (EV) game to catch up in the race toward an electrified future. To this end, yesterday the auto giant confirmed that it has entered into a joint venture (JV) with Samsung SDI to establish a $2.5 billion battery manufacturing factory in Indiana. This announcement is part of the company’s broader pledge to spend $35.5 billion on EVs and related technology through 2025.

Construction activities of the Indiana plant are slated to begin later this year and production operations are likely to begin from 2025. The factory will supply battery modules for a range of vehicles manufactured at Stellantis’ North American assembly plants. The battery facility would have an annual production capacity of 23 gigawatt hours (GWh), which would further increase to 33 GWh in the next couple of years. The total capacity could increase further depending on the demand for Stellantis’ EV models. The investment in the plant could rise to $3.1 billion gradually.

For Samsung, the plant in Indiana would mark its first battery development site in the United States. The investment comes on the heels of recent similar deals by Samsung’s peers like LG Energy Solution and SK Innovation to build battery factories in the United States in collaboration with auto biggies. At the Indiana factory, Samsung will deploy its cutting-edge technology PRiMX to develop EV battery cells. The company launched its premium battery technology brand PRiMX in 2021 and unveiled the brand at CES 2022 in January.

As for Stellantis, this JV is in sync with the company’s Dare Forward 2030 plan launched in March. The plan seeks to aid Stellantis in its transition to a carbon net-zero entity by 2038, with a 50% reduction by 2030. To achieve de-carbonization, the company aims for electrified sales to constitute 100% of its total sales in Europe and 50% in North America by the decade end. It plans to have more than 75 BEVs and reach global annual BEV sales of 5 million vehicles by 2030.Under the Dare Forward strategy, Stellantis aims to increase its planned battery capacity by 140 gigawatt-hours to nearly 400 GWh, supported by five battery plants.

Stellantis currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

While Stellantis has been lagging behind its peers like General Motors (GM - Free Report) and Ford (F - Free Report) in its transition to EVs, it’s certainly making the right strides of late. The company is catching up with the EV battery business expansion of its peers in the United States.

For instance, General Motors announced in January that it would be investing $2.6 billion to establish its third battery plant in the United States in collaboration with LG Energy.This would be the third of four planned factories for the Ultium Cells LLC joint-venture. The facility will be located in Michigan. The site is set to commence operations in 2024 and will have 50 GWh of battery cell capacity when running full production.

Meanwhile, Ford, in partnership with SK Innovation, will invest $5.8 billion in a battery manufacturing campus in Kentucky, which is targeted to commence operations in 2025. The plant will have 43 GWh of battery cell capacity when running full production.


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