battery cells

Germany could help finance three separate corporate alliances for the domestic production of battery cells for Europe’s growing electric vehicle market, according to the country’s economy minister.

Peter Altmaier (pictured) told Reuters: “We’ve now reached a point where we can say that there is likely to be not only one battery cell consortium, but probably three.”

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is set to approve a €400 million (US$450m) loan to help start-up Northvolt build a 16GWh capacity lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing plant in Sweden.

The loan to design, build and start operations at the gigafactory, which Northvolt estimates will cost a total of around €1.5 billion, is likely to get the green light when the EIB board meets on 15 May.

Volkswagen has formed a European batteries research consortium with Swedish lithium-ion start-up Northvolt.

The German carmaker said the newly-formed European Battery Union (EBU) would work with research and industry partners in seven European Union member states to cover “the entire battery value stream – from raw materials through cell technology to recycling”.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged to “whip up” the development of a made-in-Europe battery cells industry— but she held out the possibility of cooperation with international partners.

Merkel, who studied physics, said it was “unbelievably sad… that we cannot produce battery cells in the land of the founding fathers of electrochemistry (or) even the whole of Europe”.

German lithium-ion battery developer and producer BMZ is considering partnering with a Japanese company to launch a battery cell production plant in Europe, BBB can reveal.

BMZ founder and managing director Sven Bauer (pictured) said the move is a “serious option” for the company “and makes sense”, as it seeks to widen its supply chain and production capabilities.