Monday March 15, 2021
Cover the need for your own cars
VW is planning six battery factories in Europe
Car manufacturers around the world are switching to electric drives. As a result, the need for batteries is growing massively. Europe's industry leader Volkswagen now wants to build half a dozen plants – and expand the charging network.
In order to meet the increasing demand for battery cells for its e-cars, Volkswagen is pushing ahead with building up production capacities. "Together with partners, we want to put a total of six cell factories into operation in Europe by 2023 and thus guarantee security of supply," said Chief Technology Officer Thomas Schmall at the group's virtual "Power Day".
Together, the gigafactory should have a capacity of 240 gigawatt hours. A second, larger factory is to be built in Salzgitter, Lower Saxony, not far from the VW headquarters in Wolfsburg, where a battery cell factory is already planned together with the Swedish partner Northvolt.
In addition, Volkswagen and its partners want to quintuple the number of fast charging stations for electric cars in Europe to 18,000. Volkswagen intends to invest around 400 million euros in Europe for the entire program by 2025.
With the new plans, Volkswagen is laying the foundation for expanding electric mobility more quickly. The main brand VW alone wants to double the share of pure electric cars in sales in Europe to 70 percent by 2030 compared to previous plans.
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