LG Electronics has opened its first electric vehicle (EV) charger facility outside of South Korea — in Fort Worth, Texas — to capture a share of North America’s competitive EV charging market.
Its new EV charging station factory, spanning 59,202 square feet, has the capacity to produce more than 10,000 chargers per year, LG said in the company’s statement Monday. LG has started manufacturing 11-kilowatt EV chargers in Texas. It will initiate assembling chargers with a capacity of 175 kilowatts in the first half of this year and 350 kilowatts later this year.
The move comes follows LG CEO William Cho reiterating the company’s commitment to ‘electrification’ as a primary driver for mid and long-term growth last year. The South Korean electronics company has been searching for new business opportunities in areas such as EV charging and digital healthcare to reach $79 billion in sales by 2030, up from $51.4 billion in 2022. LG said the penetration into the U.S. EV market will enable the company to explore new business opportunities and tap into the rising demand for EV chargers in the U.S.
The U.S. had more than 165,000 public EV charging ports as of December 2023; U.S. President Biden aims to build at least 500,000 public chargers by 2030.
“By establishing our EV charger production factory in Texas, we will be able to actively respond to the rapidly growing demand for EV infrastructure in the U.S.,” said Jand Ik-hwan, the LG Business Solution Company president.
LG decided to set up its first EV charger factory in Texas for some strategic reasons, it said. The state offers the benefits of utilizing existing facilities coupled with logistics and transportation networks, according to LG.
The company, which has been developing EV chargers in 2018, acquired HiEV Charger, formerly AppleMango, a South Korean EV battery charger maker, in 2022 to bolster the EV charging business and manufacture EV chargers in its home country.