, Vulcan Energy and Stellantis Group announced that they have signed a binding agreement for Vulcan to provide Stellantis Group with battery-grade lithium hydroxide in Europe for the production of electric vehicles.
The battery network has learned that during the five-year period of the agreement, Vulcan will provide not less than 81000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide and no more than 99000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide to the Stellantis Group.
It was also reported last week that, Vulcan Energy had signed a second lithium supply agreement with Renault. Renault will purchase 26000 to 32000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium from Vulcan and the agreement will last for six years.
Stellantis is the fourth largest automaker in the world jointly established by PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Group (FCA) in January 2021. It owns 15 car brands, including Chrysler, Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Dodge, Opel, Jeep, RAM and Abbas, Maserati and other well-known brands.
The supply agreement with Vulcan is part of the electrification strategy announced by Stellantis Group in July 2021 to ensure an adequate supply of key raw materials for Stellantis electric vehicle battery packs. By the end of 2025, the Stellantis Group plans to invest more than 30 billion euros in the group's electrification and software development areas, while the group strives to continue to be 30 per cent ahead of the industry average in terms of the ratio of total capital expenditure and R & D expenditure to revenue.
In October, Stellantis also announced a joint venture with LG and SDI: on October 22nd, Stellantis announced that it had reached a memorandum of understanding with Samsung SDI to form a joint venture to produce batteries and modules for North America. The battery plant is scheduled to start production in 2025 with an initial annual capacity of 23GWhh and may be increased to 40GWh in the future. On October 18th, Stellantis announced that it would build a battery factory in a joint venture with LG, with an annual production capacity of 40GWh. The new battery plant is expected to break ground in the second quarter of 2022 and is expected to start production in the first quarter of 2024.
