BERLIN — Volkswagen Group plans to spend money on mines to carry down the price of battery cells, meet half of its personal demand and promote to third-party clients, Thomas Schmall, the automaker’s know-how chief, stated.
VW desires its battery unit PowerCo to develop into a world battery provider, not simply produce for the group’s personal wants, Schmall advised Reuters in an interview.
PowerCo will begin by delivering cells to Ford for the 1.2 million automobiles the U.S. automaker is constructing in Europe on VW’s electrical MEB platform, he stated.
Lengthy-term, VW plans to construct sufficient cells to fulfill half its world battery wants, with most manufacturing capability positioned in Europe and North America, in keeping with Schmall.
“The bottleneck for uncooked supplies is mining capability – that’s the reason we have to spend money on mines immediately,” he stated.
The automaker was partnering on provide offers with mining corporations in Canada, the place it should construct its first North American battery plant.
Schmall declined to touch upon additional areas into account or the place or when VW may make investments immediately in mines, saying the corporate wouldn’t disclose that data till the market was extra settled.
“In future, there will likely be a choose variety of battery requirements. By way of our massive quantity and third-party gross sales enterprise, we wish to be a type of requirements,” he stated.
Making or sourcing batteries at an inexpensive price is a key problem for automakers equivalent to VW, Tesla and Stellantis as they search to make electrical automobiles reasonably priced.
Solely Tesla has pledged extra funding into battery manufacturing than VW, in keeping with a Reuters evaluation – although even the U.S. EV maker is struggling to ramp up manufacturing and is recruiting Asian suppliers to assist.
Few automakers have disclosed direct stakes in mines, however many have struck offers with producers to supply supplies like lithium, nickel and cobalt and move them onto their battery suppliers.
PowerCo, arrange final 12 months, is focusing on 20 billion euros ($21.22 billion) in annual gross sales by 2030.
It is an bold roadmap for a unit not but producing at scale. Manufacturing will begin in 2025 at PowerCo’s plant in Salzgitter, Germany, 2026 in Valencia, Spain and 2027 in Ontario, Canada.
Nonetheless, Schmall is assured the automaker can develop shortly – and should accomplish that if it desires to construct an reasonably priced EV, through which 40 p.c of the prices come from the battery.
VW launched on Thursday the small print of a 25,000-euro EV it goals to promote in Europe from 2025.
China’s BYD, which additionally produces batteries, is much forward of VW within the reasonably priced EV race and outsold the German automaker for the second time in 4 months in China in February.
In VW’s 180-billion-euro five-year spending plan, as much as 15 billion is earmarked for its three introduced battery vegetation and a few uncooked materials sourcing.
The corporate has to date nailed down uncooked materials provide till 2026 – by which era the German and Spanish vegetation will likely be in operation – and can determine within the subsequent few months meet its demand from then on, Schmall stated within the interview.
It has additionally ordered about $14 billion in batteries from Northvolt’s Swedish plant.
“Bringing down battery prices additional is a problem,” Schmall stated. “We’re utilizing all of the devices with PowerCo.”
Asian producers like CATL, LG Chem and Samsung SDI dominate world cell manufacturing, with nearly half of deliberate battery cell capability in Europe by Asian gamers.
Half the workers at VW’s PowerCo are business veterans from Asia, Schmall stated, enabling the battery unit to enter the business on the high of the training curve.