Hyundai Motor plans to launch a new battery electric vehicle (BEV) model in Indonesia later this year powered by locally made lithium-ion battery cells, according a company spokesperson, making it the first EV maker to localise batteries in the country.
Hyundai Motor Indonesia head of marketing, Budi Nur Mukmin, announced the plans on the fringes of this year’s Indonesia International Motor Show (IIMS) in Jakarta.
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He said: “Hyundai is a leader in the EV segment. We will continue to develop Indonesia’s EV ecosystem, including production of locally made batteries.”
“We will launch new EV products that are not only assembled here in Indonesia but also equipped with domestically made batteries, starting sometime this year.
“This will be a completely new model, not just an existing model with localised batteries.”
He did not provide further details such as battery power, driving range and other specification.
In August 2021 Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution agreed to jointly invest US$1.1bn in a plant in Bekasi to produce NCMA (nickel, cobalt, manganese, aluminium) lithium ion batteries. The facility was expected to have annual capacity of 10GWh, enough for 150,000 BEVs, when completed later this year.
Hyundai was Indonesia’s largest BEV brand last year with sales of 7,500 units or 44% of segment sales. Most of these were the locally made Ioniq 5 while total Hyundai vehicle sales reached 35,500 units.
