Shanghai (ZXZC)- Envision AESC, the battery technology unit of Envision Group, on Monday started construction of the second phase of its manufacturing base in Wuxi city, Jiangsu province to produce the company's new-generation power batteries, according to an official press release.

Located in Jiangyin, a county-level city administered by Wuxi, the aforesaid facility will have a designed battery manufacturing capacity of 15GWh per year and is expected to start production in 2023.

Envision AESC breaking ground on Wuxi base's 2nd phase; photo credit: Envision AESC

Zhang Lei, CEO of Envision Group, said the products made by the project will be sold worldwide to meet the power battery demands of leading automakers in Germany, the UK, France, Japan, and other countries. Besides, the Wuxi base’s second phase will be built into a benchmark plant that can be replicated globally.

The first phase of the Wuxi manufacturing base began mass production in 2021.

Aside from the Wuxi project, the company has launched a project in Ordos, Inner Mongolia to build energy storage and power battery manufacturing facilities with a yearly capacity of 20GWh. After volume production starts, the Ordos base will be able to supply power batteries to over 300,000 electric heavy-duty trucks annually.

Up until now, Envision AESC has laid out seven battery production bases and several R&D and engineering centers in China, Japan, the U.S., France, and the UK, eyeing a global production capacity of over 200GWh by 2025.

In June 2021, Envision AESC entered into a strategic partnership with Renault Group, agreeing to supply the latter with 40GWh to 120GWh power batteries within 5 years.