(Yicai) July 2 -- Eve Energy’s US joint venture recently broke ground on a new power battery plant, which will be the Chinese lithium-ion battery maker's third overseas and supply its local commercial vehicle partners.

Amplify Cell Technologies held the foundation-laying ceremony in Mississippi on June 28, Huizhou-based Eve announced on June 30. The plant will mostly turn out square-shaped lithium iron phosphate batteries, with an annual capacity of about 21-gigawatt hours, and will create over 2,000 local jobs.

Amplify’s three other backers -- US engine giant Cummins, Daimler Truck, one of the world’s biggest commercial vehicle producers, and America’s biggest truck maker Paccar -- will be the main clients, Eve said. Deliveries should start in 2026.

The JV will need as much as USD2.6 billion of investment, the Chinese firm said in a statement last September. Eve will invest up to USD150 million for a 10 percent stake, with the other investors owning 30 percent each.

Eve, the world's ninth-biggest power battery vendor last year, is still actively developing in overseas markets. Construction work on its plants in Malaysia and Hungary started last year.

The company logged shipments of 16.2 GWh in 2023, a 130 percent gain on the previous year, data from South Korean consultancy SNE Research showed. 

Eve’s annual net profit rose 15 percent to CNY4.1 billion (USD563.9 million) on a 34 percent jump in revenue to CNY48.8 billion (USD6.7 billion), about 27 percent of which came from overseas markets, according to its 2023 earnings report.

Editor: Tom Litting