“Three and a half times more”
EU overtakes China on battery investment
06/24/2023, 07:35 am
The European Court of Auditors warns that the planned EU combustion engine from 2035 requires a much faster expansion of battery production. Commission Vice-President Sefcovic now announces: When it comes to investments, China is now significantly behind.
The European Union (EU) overtook market leader China in investments in battery technology last year. “Three and a half times more investments were made in Europe than in China,” said Vice President of the EU Commission Maros Sefcovic of “Welt am Sonntag”. “We managed to bring 180 billion euros in private equity into the European battery sector.”
With the inauguration of a first factory for cathode material by BASF at the Schwarzheide site in southern Brandenburg next week, Sefcovic believes that an important gap in the European value chain will be closed. “Currently, we have about 30 Gigafactory projects in the pipeline, but what we were completely lacking in was cathode and anode active material production,” he said. It is an enormous opportunity that BASF is investing in Lusatia and concentrating on exactly what is missing in battery production capacities in Europe.
The European Court of Auditors warned last week that the phase-out of the internal combustion engine, which is planned for 2035, is unlikely to succeed without a much faster expansion of battery production. However, Sefcovic still considers the European goals to be achievable. “Our first assessment was that by the end of the decade we should be able to cover 80 to 90 percent of the battery needs of the European automotive industry and that is still our goal,” he said. However, the challenge is great “because energy prices are very high and we see global competition in the search for new critical raw materials”.
It is the aim of the European Union to make electric car manufacturers less dependent on international supply chains. According to an evaluation by the consulting firm Alix Partners, more than 98 percent of the battery cells sold in Europe have so far been produced by Asian companies. The Chinese group Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) is the world market leader.