LG executives, including LG Group Chairman Koo Bon-moo, Vice Chairman Koo Bon-joon, LG Chem Vice Chairman Park Jin-soo, LG U+ Vice Chairman Kwon Young-soo, and LG Display Vice Chairman Han Sang-beom, participate in an event to celebrate the 70th anniversary at LG Tower in Yeouido, Seoul. 

(Photo: LG Group)

Even as LG Group is a global front-runner in automotive parts, the group is bracing for the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Since the late 2000s, the business group, which has set the industry as one of its future growth engines, has asked each of its subsidiaries to specialize in one automotive part area. 

In 2013, LG Electronics consolidated the automotive parts design company V-ENS, a subsidiary of LG CNS, and reorganized it into the Vehicle Components Business Division. In an effort to accelerate R&D activities, the Korean electronics giant dedicated LG Electronics Incheon Campus to serve as an R&D hub of the business division. In 2015, LG Electronics was selected as a strategic partner of GM to supply 11 core components for GM’s all-electric BOLT EV, which is capable of driving 320 km per charge. The automotive parts include drive motors, inverters, built-in chargers, electric compressors, battery packs, measurement boards, and infortainment systems. 

LG Display now supplies automotive display parts, including displays for information guides and measurement boards to European and U.S. global automakers. The automotive display market is predicted to maintain an annual growth rate of more than 10 percent. 

LG Display plans to focus on the nurturing of automotive displays on top of OLED and digital signage as future growth engines. The company unveiled future concept products, including clusters, center information displays and mirror-type OLEDs during the CES 2017 held in Las Vegas last January. Spectators were given a chance to experience driving in reality with automotive parts improved with safety and convenience. 

LG Innotek has been diversifying mechatronics convergence line-ups of the world’s top-rated parts since 2006 to brace for the digitalization of automotive parts. 

The company’s product portfolio comprises of about 20 automotive parts, including motors and sensors designed to enhance safety and convenience, camera modules, mobile telecommunications modules, touch panels, and battery management systems (BMS). 

The company recently won a “good quality” prize from GM. GM awards the prize to its cooperative companies which meet its stern quality standards of near-zero faults. 

LG Chem topped the ranking of global EV battery makers, according to a survey released by the global market survey institution Navigant Research in late 2015. LG Chem is a global EV battery leader as the company, armed with global premier technology and reliability, had landed a combined 83 projects from a total of 29 global automakers, surpassing 36 trillion won in accumulative orders. 

The value of backlogged orders, except 2 trillion won the company posted in sales, stands at 34 trillion won. 

LG Chem dedicated an EV battery plant in Nanjing, China, in 2015, which is capable of producing batteries for 50,000 units of all-electric EVs. The dedication of the Chinese plant has capped the company’s scheme to build a stable production platform in major markets along with the EV battery plants in Holland, the United States and Ochang, Chungcheongbuk-do, which have a capacity of 30,000 units and 100,000 units, respectively. 

Last October, the company held a groundbreaking ceremony for an EV battery plant in Poland to serve as a platform to enter the European EV battery market.