At Samsung SDI’s plant in Ulsan, a group of Hungarian engineers have been hitting the books since November.

The 81 engineers are here to learn about electric vehicle batteries in preparation for the opening of the firm’s Hungarian plant, which will produce batteries for electric vehicles from 2018.

Samsung SDI announced in August that it plans to invest around 400 billion won ($340 million) to build the plant.

The Korean battery maker, whose customers include BMW, Volkswagen and Audi, said the proposed factory would be able to produce batteries for around 50,000 electric cars a year.

Although most of the Hungarian engineers are new to Korea, almost half of them are familiar with Samsung’s culture: Thirty-nine are former employees of a Samsung SDI plant in Hungary that closed in 2013.

SDI had produced cathode ray tubes and plasma display panels from 2001 and 2013 at the Hungary plant, but it closed as liquid crystal displays and organic light-emitting diodes began to replace plasma display panels.

“I decided to return to SDI by the memories of working with good people. The car battery industry is unfamiliar to me, but it appears to have growth potential,” said Kovacs Zsuzsanna, who worked for Samsung SDI’s Hungary plant from 2003 to 2008.

Zsuzsanna, who married a co-worker while working for the Korean tech firm, is one of many who share similar memories.

Bolla David Sando, who had worked for SDI until 2013 and has since entered Samsung Electronics’ Hungarian arm, also returned.

“I worked for SDI for a decade and the company was like my hometown. I want to gain specialty in this promising industry,” he said.

Karosi Laszlo, who worked for a French automobile company after leaving SDI, said he also returned, as he missed working with his co-workers. Laszlo had worked for a facility technology division in SDI’s Hungary plant from 2002 to 2014.

The engineers will go back to Hungary after completing their training in February, and will prepare for the opening of the factory, which is slated to produce EV batteries starting from the second half of 2018.

“(The Hungarian engineers) chose to return with the good memories of the stable relationship between labor and management alongside its competitive edge in production. We will make the Hungary plant become a touchstone for jumping into the European auto market,” said Samsung SDI CEO Cho Nam-seong, who visited the Ulsan plant on Jan. 12. 

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)