Posco opens component factory in Poland

South Korean steel group Posco has opened a new factory for electric car motor cores in Brzeg, Poland. The factory will begin manufacturing prototypes in October and enter series production in December.

As reported at the factory’s groundbreaking ceremony in June 2024, the components for electric cars will come from Hyundai and Kia’s European plants. Kia is building the compact version of the EV4 at its Slovakian plant in Zilina (see our first test drive report), while Hyundai will manufacture the sister model, the Ioniq 3, in Izmit, Turkey, in the future. Both models are based on the 400-volt version of the E-GMP.

Until now, the Hyundai Group has been manufacturing its E-GMP models sold in Europe at its South Korean plants using local supply chains, in which Posco also plays a role. However, Posco has decided to manufacture the components for the European production of electric cars locally rather than importing them from South Korea. Posco will supply the electric motor cores to Hyundai’s own supplier, Hyundai Mobis, which will then assemble the drive units.

The supplier, which actually comes from the steel industry and has expanded its business for electric mobility to include cathode materials and their precursor products, wants to use its production in Europe “as a strategic base for the European market for electric vehicles,” as Business Korea writes. The South Korean company, therefore, wants to profit from the growing market for electric cars in Europe, but there is no mention of whether Posco also wants to target customers outside the Hyundai Motor Group.

Once series production in Brzeg is up and running, the plant is expected to have a production capacity of 1.2 million units per year. In the case of the Hyundai-Kia order, only the total volumes over the contract period are known, not the annual deliveries: 480,000 drive units with Posco motor cores are to go to the Kia plant in Zilina and 550,000 units to the Turkish plant of Hyundai Assan Otomotive, making a total of 1.03 million units. This would leave capacity available for third-party customers.

The new factory in Poland also expands Posco’s global production network for electric motor cores. The company can produce up to 2.5 million units per year in Pohang, South Korea, 3.5 million in Mexico, and 300,000 in India. Together with the 1.2 million cores from Poland, global production capacity stands at 7.5 million units.

businesskorea.co.kr, koreaittimes.co

This article was first published by Sebastian Schaal for electrive’s German edition