Volkswagen has been talking for quite a while about how vital the unified cell will be for its plans. On June 7, it disclosed not only prototypes of its prismatic platform for batteries but also that it will have a new company to take care of cell manufacturing: Volkswagen EVs will get its batteries from PowerCo.
The Volkswagen subsidiary will run not only the Salzgitter factory but will also take care of research and development. The German battery plant is the first wholly-owned cell plant from PowerCo, and it will start producing unified cells in 2025. Interestingly, Volkswagen’s pictures also show a longer cell that looks pretty much like the solid-state battery prototypes QuantumScape is developing.
PowerCo will invest €20 billion ($20.3 billion at the current exchange rate) together with partners until the end of 2030 to develop its battery factories. They will employ 20,000 people in Europe, 5,000 of these workers in the Salzgitter plant alone. Volkswagen did not disclose how much money it will invest specifically in its battery plant, which will deliver 40 GWh in batteries when it is at full steam.
Salzgitter may demand the same €3 billion ($3.05 billion) that Volkswagen said it would invest in its Sagunto plant in Spain. This should be the second wholly-owned battery plant for the Volkswagen group. The first factory the company announced is in Skellefteå, Sweden, in a partnership with Northvolt. So far, we only know about three of the six battery plants Volkswagen plans to build to have 240 GWh in batteries available per year.
In an early report about the Salzgitter plant, Gotion High-Tech would help Volkswagen manage Salzgitter. The company has not mentioned any sort of partnership with the Chinese battery maker at the “Mission Salzgiga” event. That may be the case because the German chancellor Olaf Scholz was present: it would be weird to celebrate the German industrial capability if a Chinese cell producer is involved.
Salzgitter will be the blueprint for other PowerCo battery factories. In other words, the Sagunto plant and the other three that are still to be announced should look exactly like it and have a dedicated space for recycling the unified cells.
Expected to be present in 80% of all Volkswagen electric cars, the unified cell is a prismatic platform that will have three main chemistries: LFP for entry-level vehicles, a ternary cell based on manganese for high-volume vehicles, and ternary batteries rich in nickel with more energy density for high-end cars.
Google News