Self-produced batteries by car companies have become a trend

Volkswagen to invest in new battery factory

It is understood that the Salzgitter factory is one of the six battery factories that Volkswagen plans to build in Europe, and it is also Volkswagen’s first European battery factory.

VW will invest around 2 billion euros in the new battery plant in Salzgitter until 2026.

The new factory is scheduled to start production in 2025 and, at full capacity, will be able to produce 40GWh of power batteries per year, enough to produce around 500,000 electric vehicles.

Volkswagen also said it would merge its global battery business into a newly formed company, PowerCo, which will manage the automaker’s activities across the battery value chain, including battery technology research and development, battery recycling and more.

Among the leading recycling companies are top 10 car battery recycling companies.

By 2030, PowerCo will invest more than 20 billion euros with its partners to develop the power battery business field, with annual sales exceeding 20 billion euros and employing up to 20,000 people in Europe.

6 battery factories will be built in Europe

Statistics show that by 2030, Volkswagen’s battery demand in Europe will be 240GWh/year.

To ensure battery supply, the Volkswagen Group hopes to work with partners to build six battery factories in Europe.

In March of this year, Volkswagen announced that it would invest more than 7 billion euros with suppliers to build a vehicle battery factory in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia, which is expected to have an annual production capacity of 40GWh.

The plant will be Volkswagen’s first battery factory outside of Germany and the second in Volkswagen’s plan to build six plants with an annual capacity of 240GWh in Europe by 2030.

In May, Volkswagen announced that it would invest 10 billion euros in the production of electric vehicles and power batteries in Spain.

The investment amount was about 3 billion euros higher than the previous plan.

Volkswagen of America said on June 8 that Volkswagen is looking to build a new electric vehicle assembly plant and battery plant in the United States, but has not yet made a decision.

Whether it’s building a new or expanding plant, it’s a big decision for Volkswagen because billions of dollars could be invested.

Self-produced batteries by car companies have become a trend

Volkswagen said: “In 2025, it will surpass Tesla as the world’s largest seller of electric vehicles”.

According to the report, Tesla will remain the number one pure electric global salesperson for at least another 18 months, while Volkswagen is expected to surpass Tesla in 2024.

The development of electric vehicles is inseparable from power batteries. According to a report released by the German Automotive Research Center, battery production will not be able to meet manufacturers’ needs before 2030;

It is estimated that between 2022 and 2029, more than 18.7 million electric vehicles worldwide will lack batteries.

In order to ensure a stable battery supply and take the initiative, Volkswagen is not the only car company that chooses to produce its own batteries:

Chinese enterprise

On March 10 this year, GAC Aian’s self-developed power battery trial production line started construction. The total investment of the project is 336 million RMB.

GAC Aian’s self-developed batteries, including sponge silicon negative electrode batteries, will be autonomous in this trial production line. Production.

The self-developed battery trial production line is expected to be completed by the end of 2022 and officially put into operation.

In May, Nezha Automobile officially announced that Nezha S will be equipped with the “Tiangong Battery” independently developed by Nezha Automobile.

At present, Tiangong Battery has completed the test work, focusing on battery safety, thermal management system, intelligent cloud management and other aspects. optimized.

Also in May, the Beijing Benz battery factory officially rolled off the production line of a new generation of Chinese Mercedes-Benz batteries.

The new batteries will be installed on China’s new pure electric sedan EQE, thus realizing the localization of key components for the new generation of Mercedes-Benz pure electric vehicles. production.

NIO plans to invest 218.5 million RMB to build a new R&D project in Anting Town, Jiading District, Shanghai.

The project includes the construction of 31 R&D laboratories, as well as a trial production line for lithium-ion cells and a pack line for battery packs, which are expected to be constructed from August to October this year.

On the 2022 GAC Technology Day held in June, GAC Group released a new generation of super-energy iron-lithium battery technology based on microcrystalline technology.

This technology will be the first to be installed on the new model of GAC Aeon currently internally codenamed A02. It is expected to be next year. Can get in the car.

Other countries enterprise

At the earnings conference in the first quarter of this year, Tesla CEO said that the delivery of the first electric vehicles equipped with self-produced 4680 battery is an important milestone.

It is expected that this year its Texas factory will be able to produce Model Y with 4680 structured battery packs and 2170 non-structured battery packs at the same time, and the Berlin factory will also achieve co-production of 2170 and 4680.

According to recent reports, BMW Group is preparing to produce its own all solid state batteries and plans to build a trial production line in Passdorf near its headquarters in Munich, Germany.

The company has invested more than 170 million euros in the manufacturing center.

BMW plans to cooperate with Korean suppliers such as CIS, Hana Technology and EcoPro BM on its own solid-state battery project. For more information on solid state battery companies, please click the link to view.

However, it should be noted that although the self-produced batteries of car companies can give them more say in the battery field, they still face problems such as high financial pressure.