Indonesia refuses to become a production base

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – The government, through Minister of Maritime Coordination Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, has announced plans to build a lithium battery plant in Morowali, Central Sulawesi, next year. The construction of this factory would be a factory lithium battery the largest in the world.

The government's plan was welcomed by the supervisor and chairman of the ITS Surabaya ITS electric car team, Muhammad Nur Yuniarto. Nur, who is also executive director of PUI-SKO ITS, hopes that Indonesia will be able to maximize its current potential to be at the forefront of the global electric vehicle industry.

"We welcome you, but that's good, the national engineering and design capabilities are also improving, not just as a production base," said Nur, who was contacted on Thursday (29.11.2018) .

Nur also asked about the readiness of factory production. Who will be the owner of the factory, where is the battery design? Nur believes that if only as a production base, it is very unfortunate.

Read also: BMW Select Thailand instead of Indonesia for battery production

"It's boring if it's just a basic production country, not an engineering base, the hope is," Nur said.

Nur revealed that up to now, some obstacles prevented Indonesia from becoming a powerful country in engineering and design. He hopes that in the future, the government will pay particular attention to these shortcomings.

"We hope that the state will continue to encourage and fund research and / or technology transfer," Nur said.

Minister Luhut revealed that the construction of lithium battery plant was a very important development axis, because Indonesia can control the electric vehicle market in the world.

"So, that will lead to lithium battery. This is a key factor as it will reduce the price of electric cars as lithium batteries lead to higher and higher nickel content. We are the largest nickel producer in the world and the price is also rising. Lithium battery "It can also be recycled and, if it works, it will of course reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel vehicles," said Luhut.

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