SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution Ltd (LGES) plans to reevaluate its investment plan for a standalone Arizona battery factory due to the current U.S. economic environment, a company spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The spokesperson’s comments on the previously announced $1.3 billion investment came after LGES said in a statement that, “Given the unprecedented economic conditions and investment circumstances in the U.S., LG Energy Solution is currently reviewing various investment options.”
The company, South Korea’s biggest player in the booming market for electric vehicles and batteries, said no decisions have been made in its statement, which didn’t mention the Arizona plan.
LGES shares fell 2.6% in early trading, while the benchmark KOSPI index was down.
The statement comes just three months after LGES, which counts Tesla Inc, General Motors Co and Volkswagen AG among its customers, announced plans to build a battery factory in Arizona by 2024 to meet demand from startups and other North American customers.
LGES said in March the plant would be its first U.S. factory to make cylindrical cells, a type of battery that has been used in Tesla and Lucid vehicles. Construction was to begin in the second quarter of 2022, it said, with mass production to start in 2024.
In the United States, LGES is building three plants with GM in Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan and plans to expand its existing factory in Michigan.
LGES has production sites in the United States, South Korea, China, Poland, Canada and Indonesia.
($1 = 1,290.8000 won)
(Reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Tom Hogue and Kenneth Maxwell)
