Battery manufacturer Boston Power has secured $290 million in local government support for the expansion of its two facilities in China. The company’s Liyang facility will increase its manufacturing capacity fivefold by 2016. Its Tianjin facility is expected to reach 8 GWh in manufacturing capacity by 2018.

Boston Power expects China’s EV market to be worth $35 billion by 2020, with demand for lithium-ion batteries hitting 100 GWh.

“China is the largest and fastest growing EV market in the world and leads in the manufacturing of EVs and e-buses,” said Boston Power Chairman Sonny Wu. “Our analysis shows that this market will experience significant battery supply constraints over the next 3-5 years, which we aim to address. We will use this support to ease a backlog of secured contract orders for our range of more than 30 EV battery designs used by leading Chinese automakers.”

“Tianjin has been on the cusp of China’s drive for EV adoption, and we’re constantly embracing a growing variety of EV models into our city and into our grid,” said Tianjin government official Xiangyu Ni. “We are specifically supporting local and foreign companies, such as Boston Power, whose innovations are helping China, the world’s largest auto market, to meet its aggressive demand for long-range EVs.”

Source: Boston Power