San Francisco-based lithium-ion tech company, Farasis Energy, plans to invest more than €600 million (US$672m) in building a battery cell, module and packaging production facility in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The company’s newly formed subsidiary, Farasis Energy Europe, will operate what will be its first European plant at Bitterfeld-Wolfen— which is expected to start making batteries for pure electric vehicles from around the end of 2022.
Farasis said last year it was looking to open a “large-scale” European lithium-ion cell production facility after securing financing “exceeding US$1 billion”.
The site will have an initial annual production capacity of 6GWh, rising to around 10GWh, Saxony-Anhalt’s economic affairs ministry confirmed.
Farasis’ investment decision comes after a Europe-wide competition to host the battery plant, said state secretary Dr Jürgen Ude.
MD of Stuttgart-based Farasis Energy Europe, Sebastian Wolf, said: “After a long and intensive evaluation of several dozen locations across Europe, we are now convinced that Bitterfeld-Wolfen offers the best complete package for the sustainable production of lithium-ion batteries for Farasis’ first European production site.”
Farasis was founded in California in 2002 and currently employs more than 3,500 worldwide with research centres in the US and China. The company has two production plants in China and claims to be the country’s third largest manufacturer of electric vehicle batteries and the world’s second largest provider of pouch cell-sized batteries.
Earlier this year, Germany revealed the partners of a new federal government-backed battery cell consortium, as part of plans to secure the nation’s “technological sovereignty in battery technology”.
