Thursday, July 24th, 2014
SEOUL, KOREA - Beijing BESK Technology, a tripartite joint venture among China's state-run Beijing Automotive Industries Holdings, Beijing Electronics Holdings, and Korea's SK Innovation, has won an order of 2,000 battery packs. The delivery will be made by the Seosan (South Chungcheong Province) plant of SK Innovation, which is a breakthrough for the company in regaining its growth momentum.
According to SK Innovation China on July 22, BESK signed an agreement with Beijing Automotive Industries to supply the 2,000 electric vehicle battery packs by the year's end.
A Beijing BESK official said, "Although we will stop short of producing 2,000 battery packs this year, we will bring up the number to 5,000-8,000 next year. Within a few years, we will be able to turn to the black." The company is currently building a production line capable of churning out 10,000 battery packs a year. It will increase the capacity up to 20,000 by 2017.
With the battery packs delivered from Beijing BESK, Beijing Automotive Industries will assemble two electric vehicle models for taxis and government fleets, as well as for the general public. Of these, 50 cars will be provided to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting to be held in October this year in Beijing. After the Beijing city government announced recently that it would limit the number of cars on the road of the city at 600,000 of which 170,000 would be electric vehicles, the market for electric vehicles is expanding rapidly.