Although Volkswagen’s one-off car can save a lot and offer cheaper electric vehicles, some are not very happy with the news. LGES (LG Energy Solution) and SK Innovation were surprised and thought Volkswagen would talk to them before deciding to adopt a single and unusual modular battery.
Ironically, the legal dispute between LGES and SK Innovation in the US could be one of the reasons for Volkswagen deciding to have its own battery format, regardless of the chemistry, as the company announced on Volkswagen Power Day.
According to Motor NewsVolkswagen would have warned both Korean suppliers that the dispute would only benefit Chinese suppliers, such as CATL, which manufactures prismatic LFP cells.
Even though the unified cell looks like a prismatic cell, it seems to be more than just that. Unfortunately, Volkswagen has not announced much about it unless he wants to start using it: 2023. This is probably why we have not learned much about it, other than what the unit will look like from it.
One of the reasons why Volkswagen decided not to use more cylindrical or pocket cells is to reach a massive scale with the unit size. Another one is the goal of making CTP (sell-to-pack) batteries, which are cheaper and increase the energy density. We will bet that the unified cell has a special cooling method.
What LGES and SK Innovation should fear most is losing all the investments they have made in manufacturing these other cell formats. Volkswagen has said it will honor all of its current contracts. The South Korean suppliers probably expected that future suppliers would also be based on cylindrical and pocket cells, which is clearly not the case with Volkswagen.
If these suppliers do not find other buyers interested in these formats, they will lose a reasonable amount. What they should fear most is that these other car companies appreciate Volkswagen’s idea and try to do something similar.