NIKEL.CO.ID, JAKARTA – President Joko Widodo's (Jokowi) government program to create an electric vehicle (EV) battery ecosystem to become the World's Number One EV Battery King is now starting to become a reality. With plans for the first and first production of EV batteries in Indonesia in April 2024 by PT Hyundai LG Indonesia (HLI) Green Power in Karawang, West Java.

This was conveyed by the President Director of PT HLI Green Power, Hong Woo Pyoung, regarding PT HLI's readiness to carry out mass production. Apart from that, the electric vehicle battery industry in Indonesia will be able to produce pioneering young engineers who have the ability to manufacture electric car battery cells.

“We have been preparing everything since September 2023. "We are ready to carry out mass production in April 2024," said Hong in a press statement quoted from the Ministry of Investment/Investment Coordinating Agency (BKPM) website, Thursday (18/4/2024).

According to him, engineers from Indonesia have been trained for a year and will continue to be provided with training. “They are very smart, diligent and competent. "We are very proud of the engineers from Indonesia," he said.

The government through the Special Staff (Stafsus) of the Ministry of Investment/BKPM, Tina Talisa, confirmed Indonesia's readiness to start mass production of the first EV battery which will be recorded as a new history of the start of the Indonesian EV battery industry.

This step makes Indonesia the first EV battery cell producing country in Southeast Asia, and strengthens Indonesia's determination to support the EV battery ecosystem development project (grand package) worth US$9.8 billion or IDR 142 trillion.

Tina emphasized that President Jokowi's leadership focused on downstream development so that he gave more special attention to the upstream and downstream nickel industry after the groundbreaking of the PT HLI EV battery factory in September 2021.

According to him, downstreaming is a way to create added value from Indonesia's abundant natural resources, one of which is nickel.

"We then make the process integrated from upstream to downstream, that's why there is the world's first integrated electric vehicle battery investment with a grand package of US$9.8 billion," he said.

"So it is integrated from the upstream of the mine, then to the smelter, then refining, processing, precursor, cathode, then into battery cells," he continued.

He explained that the production of EV battery cells will make Indonesia the first country to produce electric vehicle battery cells in Southeast Asia to use the latest technology from LG. The domino effect is that the young Indonesian workers who were absorbed into this project also became the first EV engineers in Southeast Asia.

"Downstreaming is able to create a workforce that is properly absorbed in the sense of having high skills so that the income is higher and is able to bring Indonesia out of the middle income trap," he concluded.

As is known, PT HLI Green Power is a joint venture company between Hyundai Motor Company, LG Energy Solution, and PT Indonesia Battery Corporation (IBC). PT HLI Green Power's investment is a follow-up to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Ministry of Investment/BKPM and the Hyundai, LG and IBC Consortium on July 28 2021.

Furthermore, in September 2023, President Jokowi  visited PT HLI Green Power to conduct a direct inspection of the process and results of electric vehicle battery cell production.

In the first phase, PT HLI absorbed an investment of USD 1.1 billion and had a production capacity of 10 gigawatt/hour (GWh), consisting of 32.6 million battery cells which could produce approximately 150,000 electric vehicles. In the second phase, expected in 2025, PT HLI plans to increase production capacity to 20 GWh.

(SOURCE)