Korean SK Group recently announced that it will set up a joint venture with US carmaker Ford, with an aim to build a new battery factory in the United States for Ford’s electric vehicles, the Reuters reported on May 20. SK Group is currently building its second factory in Georgia, the United States, that is capable of producing 11.7 gigawatt hours of batteries for Ford’s electric vehicles upon completion in 2023. Under the tie-up, the JV is projected to produce 125 gigawatt-hours by 2025 amid the support of the Biden administration’s US$174 billion electric vehicle plan, including 3 million electric vehicles and 500,000 battery plants, up from 25,000 plants in March 2020. As of 2019, there were 7.7 million electric vehicle battery plants in the world, 37% or 2.4 million of which were in China, and 24% or 1.5 million of which were in the United States, according to MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute), a major government think tank and leading IT research institute in Taiwan.