VW's "Battery Day" Is Called "Power Day," and Its "Gigafactory," "gigafactory"

Well, it wasn't necessarily the difference between the official figures and the de facto ones that caused the biggest upset, but rather the fact the company decided to keep it hidden from the public by consciously manipulating the emissions tests. But that was in 2015, and this is 2021.

The German carmaker promised it would make good by focusing intensely on electric vehicles. Although it only has two actual models to show so far, most analysts (and even Tesla fans) consider Volkswagen to be the legacy manufacturer with the most serious intent of making the switch to EVs.

Well, in true Tesla fashion, VW has just presented its plan for the upcoming decade by holding its first "Power Day", a presentation of the company's roadmap to 2030 that will see it shift even more of its focus on developing electric vehicles and the required infrastructure.

“E-mobility has become core business for us," says Volkswagen Group CEO and fledgling Twitter user, Herbert Diess. As Elon Musk (as well as common sense) repeatedly told us, if you want to build EVs, you're going to need batteries. Unsurprisingly, Volkswagen has a plan for that. Somewhat more surprisingly, this plan includes "gigafactories."

That's right, no capital "G". Why? Because they are not Gigafactories, just regular factories that happen to be "giga". Yup, apparently, that's how Volkswagen refers to the plants it will build to ensure it'll have the supply of battery cells when production of EVs truly ramps up.

No fewer than six of them are on the cards by 2030, with a scheduled cell production capacity of 240 GWh (240,000,000 kWh) per year. With an average battery size of 70 kWh, it equates to nearly 3.5 million units per year. Don't forget, however, that these six plants will all be located in Europe, with the U.S. as well as China likely to host others as well. The first two should be located in Sweden (Skellefteå) and Germany (Salzgitter), with a production capability of 40 GWh each.

The German carmaker also plans to introduce a unified cell by the end of 2023, aiming to reduce the costs and improve the EVs' range and performance. According to the officials, this cell (which, strangely, has no Tesla-connected name; then again, it doesn't have any name whatsoever) will feature in 80 percent of the group's EVs by 2030. Cost reductions of up to 50 percent in the entry-level segment and up to 30 percent in the volume segment are expected.

Finally, Volkswagen is also targeting the other key aspect of electric mobility: the charging infrastructure. The Wolfsburg-based company has deals in place with three important energy suppliers in Europe—BP (United Kingdom), Iberdrola (Spain), and Enel (Italy)—that will lead to the opening of roughly 18,000 new fast-charging points across four countries.

The U.S. and China won't be neglected either. The former is set to welcome up to 3,500 new fast-charging points across North America (which presumably includes Canada as well) by the end of the year, while the latter has a more generous figure of 17,000 in-store, but by 2025.

All name-related jokes aside, Volkswagen's "Power Day" shows once again the company takes EVs seriously, and if a player the size of VW does, then maybe everybody else should as well. Or maybe they know better. We're pretty sure that's what the dodo thought as well.