LS

■ Construction of a 35,000-sq.m factory in Durango ••• Full-scale mass production system to be completed by 2024;
■ The capacity to produce 9 million computational relays and 2 million BDUs • • • Sales target of KRW 700 billion in North America by 2030;
■ Accelerating penetration of the North American market, which is expected to grow explosively with an aggressive localization strategy.

LS e-Mobility Solutions, LS ELECTRIC’s electric vehicle parts subsidiary, will construct our second overseas production base in Mexico after China and broaden our well-established foothold in the North American electric vehicle market.

LS ELECTRIC announced on July 7 that our subsidiary LS e-Mobility Solutions recently signed an MOU to build an electric vehicle parts factory in Durango, Mexico, with Jeong in-ho, head of LS e-Mobility Solutions Mexico corporation and Governor José Rosa Aispuro Torres in attendance.

LS e-Mobility Solutions is on track to build a production factory measuring 35,000 sq. meters in Durango in 2023 and establish a mass production system for electric vehicle core components, such as the EV relays and battery disconnect unit (BDUs), beginning in 2024. 

The Mexican state of Durango has promised to support industrial facilities such as land, water, electricity, tax incentives, recruitment support, and training for hiring local personnel in line with LS e-Mobility Solutions investment.

LS e-Mobility Solutions envisions the Mexican factory with state-of-the-art facilities to serve as the base for the North American car market when it’s fully completed.

It expects this factory to have a production capacity of 9 million EV relays and 2 million BDUs in 2030 and generate about KRW 700 billion in annual sales in North America.

This factory, which will be the first step in expanding LS e-Mobility Solutions’ foothold in North America, is the first overseas factory to be built since the company was spun off from LS ELECTRIC in April. LS e-Mobility Solution currently has production bases in Cheongju in Korea and Wuxi in China.

An LS e-Mobility Solutions official stated, “The new factory will be located in Durango in northern Mexico, which offers an ideal location with respect to production and logistics to target the North American market. Through the investment in Mexico and aggressive localization, LS e-Mobility Solutions is set to ramp up penetrating the North American market, where explosive growth is expected with the transition to eco-friendly mobility.”

[Supplementary Info.]

■ EV relay
EV relays are applied to environmentally friendly vehicles with electric motors, such as electric and hybrid vehicles. The product supplies or safely shuts off the battery's electrical energy to the power train that drives the vehicle. The core of the technology is durability to withstand high voltage and current, lightweight, and noiseless technology.

■ Battery disconnect unit (BDU)
BDU is a module product that combines relays, current sensors, pre-charge resistances, and fuses, and is a type of switch that connects and blocks the battery’s high-voltage current by connecting the battery and the load stage (such as inverter, cooling system, heating system, and gearbox). It also protects the circuit and related parts by cutting off the power when excessive abnormal current flows.

■ Global market size of EV relay
As the global electric vehicle market experiences full-fledged growth, the EV relay market is forecasted to grow sharply from KRW 1.9 trillion in 2022 to KRW 4.4 trillion in 2026 and KRW 7.3 trillion in 2030.