POSCO International Corp., a pivotal arm of South Korea’s steel behemoth POSCO Holdings Inc., is expanding its imprint in the environment-friendly vehicle sector with the establishment of traction motor core manufacturing plants in Poland and Mexico. The plan was ironed out at a board meeting where Lee Kye-in, former global business unit chief, won the CEO title and is assumed to get the nod at a regular shareholders meeting in March.
The Polish plant will sit on a 100,000 square-meter site at Brzeg that will place POSCO International near electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing hubs in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. The ground-breaking is slated for June, with the finishing touches due by May 2025. The facility eventually will crank out 1.2 million units annually by 2030, enabling it to fill orders from leading automakers to supply their EVs for the European market. Its customers will include Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp.
The Mexican facility at Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila near a facility already in use, underscores POSCO International’s resolve to demolish the EV motor core market by doubling down on two chips. Expected to go online next March, the new plant would raise annual Mexican production to 2.5 million units, with the added capacityened primary purpose to manufacture for U.S. EV production needs of Hyundai Motor’s Florida-based Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America LLC.
The latest moves will see POSCO International rise to an outfit that will spread its tentacles in five countries with facilities operating alongside Korea in China and India. The vision leaves them aiming for at least 10% of the global market share by 2030 as they aim to put out 7 million motor cores a year. The company, which was spun off in 2020 through their affiliated POSCO Mobility Solution, which was spun off in 2020, serves not only to further consolidate their dominant position in Korea’s motor core industry but in their abiding commitment to power the era of eco-friendly transportation.
