Vingroup gets green light for second battery factory

The nation’s largest private conglomerate, Vingroup, has received in-principle approval to build its second auto battery plant in the same economic zone as the first in central Vietnam.

The VND6,329 billion ($267 million) lithium battery factory will be located in the Vung Ang Economic Zone in Ha Tinh province.

Le Trung Phuoc, chairman of the Ha Tinh EZ’s management board, told The Investor Friday that Vingroup’s battery subsidiary VinES got the board’s green light Wednesday. The second facility will cover 14 hectares.

The design capacity of the plant is 5 gigawatts-hour per annum, equal to 30 million lithium iron phosphate (LFP) rechargeable battery cells. LFP batteries are mainly used for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage systems.

Construction is scheduled to finish by the fourth quarter of 2023, followed by the installation of machinery and production lines before the plant becomes operational in the first quarter of 2024. VinES plans to begin mass production by the third quarter of the same year.

The battery maker had started construction of the first factory, a VND4,000 billion ($173.7 million) facility, on an eight hectare site in Vung Ang. Financed by Vingroup, the factory will provide lithium batteries for VinFast’s EVs and electric buses. As of September, construction of the first facility has been basically completed.

VinFast - Vingroup’s auto unit - has shifted to manufacturing EVs instead of gasoline or diesel powered vehicles. Its electric cars are already present in the Vietnamese market, while its customers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe are expected to get their first deliveries this December.

Ha Tinh province’s Vung Ang Economic Zone will also house other Vingroup businesses. The corporation had said it wanted to start construction of four projects inside the Vung Ang compound in the fourth quarter of 2022, including a car factory, seaport, logistics center and tourist complex.

An estimated investment of up to VND302,5 trillion ($12.76 billion) would be spent on building the compound, which is expected to create jobs for over 10,000 local people.