German carmaker Volkswagen is to invest “just under €1 billion” (US$1.1bn) to build a battery cell production facility in the country with an undisclosed partner.
A VW spokesperson told BEST Battery Briefing its partner would be “a European-based company” but declined to elaborate.
However, the spokesperson revealed the plant would have an annual production capacity of 10GWh and could be in operation by 2022/2023. The spokesperson said it was “too early” to discuss the size of the facility itself and declined to comment when asked if the project might attract financing under the European Union’s Battery Alliance initiative.
VW’s supervisory board gave the green light to the project on 13 May and said “concrete negotiations” were already under way to set up the facility at Salzgitter, in Lower Saxony. The facility is expected to focus on lithium-ion cells for electric vehicle batteries, but VW has said it also intends to pursue R&D in solid-state battery tech in Europe.
But VW has made clear its commitment that the newly-announced project would require “competitive general conditions” being in place— including exemptions from renewable energy levies and incentives such as tax breaks for its investment in the region.
The move comes a year after VW told BBB it would incorporate a new pilot manufacturing plant for battery cells at Salzgitter— where the company has an existing production centre. The pilot facility will start operating as planned from the middle of this year (2019).
Earlier this year, VW invested $10 million in US-based Forge Nano for the start-up to continue investigating and developing “a material coating technology that could further improve the performance of battery materials”.
