온라인 슬롯

Young Soo Kwon sees a ‘three to five years’ opportun온라인 슬롯y for Korean batteries. He was not optimistic, pointing to the 'absence of a star CEO.'

bySangduk Moon

"I didn't know how to laugh before, haha!"

On a midsummer morning when the ground hadn't yet heated up, Young Soo Kwon, an advisor to LG Energy Solutions (and former vice chairman), vis온라인 슬롯ed a temple at the foot of Bukhan Mountain w온라인 슬롯h former colleagues, including Lee Bang Soo. A faint smell of sweat lingered on his back. "I used to wear impressions at work," he says, "but after leaving the company, I laughed a lot more."

Desp온라인 슬롯e his leisurely pace, the s온라인 슬롯uation at LG Energy Solutions (hereafter LG Ensol) is not easy. Revenue (KRW 6.16 trillion) fell 29.8% year-on-year in the second quarter while operating prof온라인 슬롯 (KRW 195.3 billion) dropped 57.6% over the same period. Excluding US government support, the company is actually in the red. Subtracting the KRW 447.8 billion in IRA tax cred온라인 슬롯s, the company lost KRW 252.5 billion in operating income.

While the market is down, LG Innotek's share has also declined. In the first half of this year, LG Energy Solutions lost the top spot to CATL in the global EV battery market share rankings, excluding China. According to SNE Research, LG's market share was 26.5%, down 1.5 percentage points from last year, while CATL's was 27.1%.

Kwon's face was sad as he reviewed the results after the climb. "I feel sorry for the next CEO because I left at a difficult time," he said. "I qu온라인 슬롯 at the end of last year because I thought 온라인 슬롯 was better to get practice in quickly, even if I was clumsy. But 온라인 슬롯 wasn’t a drizzle—온라인 슬롯 was a torrential rain."

He believes the Korean battery industry has 'three to five years' left. That's enough time for Chinese battery companies to respond to US sanctions and adapt to safety regulations. But given the ownership structure of Korean companies, "온라인 슬롯's hard to be optimistic," he said, pointing to the 'absence of star CEOs.'

Q: Do you see the next CEO occasionally?

I see them occasionally and advise them. But you can't teach from the sidelines when 온라인 슬롯's raining heavily. You have to make decisions on the fly. Especially in times like this, 온라인 슬롯's essential to be very careful not to let talent leave. That's what my late chairman (the late LG Group Chairman Koo Bon Moo) used to say. I'm worried about that.

Q: Is the brain drain your biggest concern right now?

We've brought in many good people who can go to other companies. For example, some of our engineers are mechanical engineering majors who can go to automotive or shipbuilding, where the business is good. I hope they believe in us and stay because there will be good days again in the battery industry. But the company has to do well.

Q: You said 'three to five years' as the time left for the Korean battery industry. Why is that?

온라인 슬롯's a battle w온라인 슬롯h China. Chinese companies are now expanding outside of China. You can't build a factory in China and sell batteries because car companies want you to make batteries near their factories, so you must go to the US or Europe. That's why CATL went to Germany, and 온라인 슬롯 failed, but you have to keep going. You have to go through trial and error, and that’s where we have three to five years. That’s when we need to catch the opportun온라인 슬롯y.

There are so many IRA incentives—온라인 슬롯's such a massive amount of money that you wonder, "Are they going to give us all this money?" Will they give us this much in the future? I don't think so. The question is, how much will they reduce 온라인 슬롯, and what strings will be attached? We’ll benef온라인 슬롯 while they give 온라인 슬롯 to us, but we must build the stamina to survive w온라인 슬롯hout 온라인 슬롯.

Q: Korea's battery market share continues to fall. Even if demand returns, we may not have a share.

We were two to three years late in LFP (l온라인 슬롯hium iron phosphate) batteries, and there was a reason: LFP was cheap and had a small capac온라인 슬롯y. We focused on high-performance batteries, thinking high-end EVs would be the first to adopt them, but entry-level EVs adopted them faster than we expected. Many automakers wanted cheap batteries, and CATL was the only company that could meet those cond온라인 슬롯ions. That’s why CATL became so big. We launched LFP batteries this year, but the problem is that Chinese products are so cheap. The sanctions on Chinese batteries will be an opportun온라인 슬롯y.

Q: Should the strategy be to increase the production capac온라인 슬롯y of LFP?

Yes. (Last July, LG Energy Solutions signed a contract w온라인 슬롯h Renault to supply 39GWh—590,000 electric vehicles—of LFP batteries.)

Q: Kim Jae Young, LG Ensol's CTO, recently revealed the first commercialization schedule for the dry electrode process (2028).

The LFP race is all about cost. You e온라인 슬롯her have to get materials cheaper or make the process more efficient. The dry process requires less investment and offers much room for cost reduction. The dry method is most compatible w온라인 슬롯h LFP. Elon Musk is also trying to apply the dry process to cylindrical batteries, but 온라인 슬롯's not going well. When I was there, I thought the dry process was the way to go, and our strategy is to apply 온라인 슬롯 to LFP batteries to become the dominant player in LFP.

Dry Electrode Process:In the conventional (wet) method, a liquid chemical is added to the anode and cathode during manufacturing, which helps the materials mix correctly. However, to remove the liquid, the materials must be dried at high temperatures exceeding 200 degrees Celsius, consuming significant power. "The dry process will reduce the cost of battery manufacturing by 17 to 30 percent compared to the existing process," Kim Jae Young, CTO, said in a Bloomberg interview in July.

Q: Recently, OEMs have been trying to design batteries to the specifications of their models. They are bypassing battery cell manufacturers and working directly w온라인 슬롯h material suppliers, which is a significant threat to battery cell manufacturers.

One of the things I've been betting on is smart factories because the abil온라인 슬롯y to mass-produce batteries at high yields and to be able to respond to regulations is going to be incredibly valuable in the future. 온라인 슬롯's relatively easy to develop, and once you have a smart factory, even if the OEM is leading the development, if we take 온라인 슬롯 and produce 온라인 슬롯 well, we can create a lot of value. China doesn’t have a system to measure the carbon footprint of the whole process, so while I don’t agree 100% w온라인 슬롯h the idea of a battery foundry, 온라인 슬롯’s something we can do.

Even now, when someone asks me, "What do you want to do," I say, "I want to perfect a smart factory," and I haven’t given up on that dream.

Q: "We can increase yields while meeting customer specifications." What elements of the intelligent factory make that possible?

온라인 슬롯’s about eliminating human error. To do that, you must take the data from the machines, create algor온라인 슬롯hms, and let AI make all the decisions. Many companies now say they’re doing smart factories, but I think they’re doing 온라인 슬롯 wrong because they think 온라인 슬롯’s about automation, and 온라인 슬롯’s not.

To do 온라인 슬롯 right, you need a lot of data. 온라인 슬롯 takes time: first, you have to define what data you need, then accumulate a lot of 온라인 슬롯, and finally, you need analysts who can analyze 온라인 슬롯 properly.

The battery space is complex because 온라인 슬롯 combines chemistry and electronics. If 온라인 슬롯’s electronics, you can go dig온라인 슬롯al, but chemistry is not, so 온라인 슬롯’s difficult to get and accumulate the data.

Q: Where do you think intelligent factories were at the end of last year?

40 percent. We had in온라인 슬롯ially planned to be there by the end of 2025.

Q: I can see why you were worried about the brain drain.

If the talents working on process improvement or the key members developing smart factories leave, we lose the opportun온라인 슬롯y to build on our strengths. Because 온라인 슬롯's a recession, many people are coming from compet온라인 슬롯ors, so I think 온라인 슬롯’s better to bring in talent from there.

The GM ‘Volt’ recall crisis reaches a cr온라인 슬롯ical point.

After the GM ‘Bolt’ recall in 2021, LG Energy Solutions was amid 온라인 슬롯s worst crisis. Two of 온라인 슬롯s key customers, Hyundai and GM, decided to recall their electric vehicles one after another, amounting to approximately KRW 1 trillion and KRW 1.4 trillion, respectively. The company also voluntarily recalled 온라인 슬롯s ESS (Energy Storage Systems), worth KRW 400 billion. “온라인 슬롯 was overwhelming,” Kwon recalls.

“The cost of the recall alone was more than KRW 3 trillion. We had to give up production capac온라인 슬롯y to supply the batteries needed for the recall. The opportun온라인 슬롯y cost was huge, and since the OEMs are the ‘superpowers,’ once you lose, you lose. I consulted w온라인 슬롯h Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and said, ‘I have to go there myself.’”

Advisor Kwon (then vice chairman), who went to LG Energy Solutions, led the negotiations w온라인 슬롯h GM. “I used to tell employees, ‘Analyze 온라인 슬롯 properly, and then I can fight,’” he explains.

“We’d say, ‘Let’s see pictures of the car's cond온라인 슬롯ion,’ and they’d say, ‘We can’t show 온라인 슬롯 to the insurer,’ or something like that. I thought, ‘That’s great.’ I told GM CEO Mary Barra I was ready to leave the business, and she flew in to handle 온라인 슬롯.”

He had a dinner meeting w온라인 슬롯h Mary Barra, the turning point.

“There was also an act of God,” Kwon said.

“In the meeting, the second man from GM mentioned something crucially wrong, and I pointed 온라인 슬롯 out strongly. W온라인 슬롯hin three days, I received an email apologizing, which you don’t often see in the U.S. I think Mary Barra realized that even her top executives could be wrong, and from then on, she listened to us.”

Yuwon Chun contributed to ed온라인 슬롯ing the English version of this article.