China snubs Italy on SVult batteries (which supplies Stellantis)
SVolt, Chinese, wants to open five battery factories in Europe: two will be built in Germany and none in Italy. Chinese companies are preparing to dominate the European electric car supply chain: SVult already has a supply agreement with Stellantis. All the details
Chinese battery company SVult Energy Technology plans to open a total of five factories in Europe to deepen ties with the continent's automakers. But he has no plans for Italy, it seems.
Born from the spin-off of the battery unit of Great Wall Motors, a Chinese automotive company BMW's partner in electric mobility, SVult already owns two sites in Germany, one of which will start supplying batteries to Stellantis from 2025.
THE OBJECTIVES OF VOLT
The company – also supported by Xiaomi – aims to reach 2030 with a production capacity in Europe of at least 50 gigawatt hours, an amount capable of powering 1 million electric vehicles.
“We could develop our sites even faster if we had more resources like land and skilled workers available,” Kai-Uwe Wollenhaupt, head of SVolt Europe, told Bloomberg .
The agency writes that SVult is negotiating battery supply deals with several European automakers, and is expected to finalize three deals by mid-year.
WILL CHINA DOMINATE THE EUROPEAN BATTERY INDUSTRY?
Judging from the current situation, the European battery industry will probably be dominated by Chinese companies. A projection reported by Reuters says that Asian companies are worth 44 percent of the planned battery production capacity in the Old Continent by 2030.
CATL , the world's largest cell manufacturer, opened its first European plant in Germany this year and is building – despite local opposition – a 7.3 billion USD factory in Debrecen, Hungary . euro: among others, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen will be refuelled.
EVE Energy has also bought land in Hungary: the company works a lot with BMW. Gotion Hi-Tech has plans for Germany. Envision AESC wants to open factories in Spain and France.
SVolt, on the other hand, is building a 12 gigawatt plant in Brandenburg, Germany. There would also be a second 2 billion euro facility in the German state of Saarland, but it had to postpone its opening to 2027 (it was expected by the end of 2023) due to population protests. The company explained to Bloomberg that it aims to open plants of reduced dimensions, in order to limit the consumption of land and water and prevent public opposition.
BEYOND GERMANY
Beyond Germany, SVolt is looking for other locations in Eastern, Northern and Western Europe to open factories, only one of which will be large (approximately 20 GW of capacity). He doesn't seem to have plans for Italy, though, but for France and Spain.
– Read also: This is how China will also dominate sodium batteries
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/svolt-batterie-europa/ on Fri, 14 Apr 2023 08:45:36 +0000.