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The Spanish government turns on the electricity to the maxi pole for the production of batteries for electric cars

1 year ago babelfish

The Spanish government turns on the electricity to the maxi pole for the production of batteries for electric cars

With the approval of the executive, the last obstacle to Volkswagen's investments has been removed. The German company will invest 10 billion euros in the Spanish hub for the production of batteries for electric mobility. Iberdrola and 60 companies connected to Wolfsburg are involved

As is well known, Spain has never had a great tradition in the automotive field, but it has always been, for purely economic and wage reasons, the nation in which foreign brands preferred to open their industries. In fact, in terms of the number of cars produced, it is behind Germany and ahead of France. And now that the industry in the sector is in full revolution, the Iberian Peninsula is also preparing itself with a good number of public investments, also taking advantage of the temporary suspension "for Covid" of the European rules that would normally prohibit such large loans, subject to fall within the case of state aid.

THE SPANISH PRODUCTION CENTER

With the Spanish government's okay for economic support for the ecological transition initiative, Volkswagen will go ahead with the 10 billion investment (initially the estimated sum was seven) announced in the first half of the year to start the production of zero-emission cars and the creation of related batteries in Spain. We all know what 10 billion is, but to make the idea of ​​proportions even better, VW's latest investment in Spain in the electric and hybrid car segment was in 2021 for a 7 million R&D plant (more on that soon). . Not billions.

Given the importance of the figure, accompanied by half the Iberian government, the then number 1 of VW, Herbert Diess, had rightly declared: “We will electrify Spain with a new gigafactory and a new factory dedicated to electric cars. We will create an ecosystem of suppliers that work across the entire value chain, from lithium mining to battery assembly ”.

The former CEO's reference was to the Segunto battery factory, near Valencia, which will have a capacity of 40 GWh per year and should be ready by the first quarter of 2023. The gigafactory will instead be operational by 2026 but will arrive at full capacity only in 2030 when it will have over 3,000 employees.

The German plan provides for the involvement of Seat, 60 companies connected to Volkswagen and, above all, the largest Spanish energy company, Iberdrola, which has allocated 500 million euros for electric mobility and which will install a photovoltaic park that will help power the gigafactory that will be built in Sagunto. It would have been precisely the intervention of Seat and Iberdrola, in all probability pushed into the field by the Spanish government, to have convinced the Germans to put 3 billion more on the operation, with the passage from seven to 10.

THE GOVERNMENT'S HELP (Woe to CALL IT STATE AID)

But, as anticipated, VW only put the money into the pot after receiving reassurance from the executive that Madrid will contribute to the financing of the Spanish hub. How? Through real state aid in favor of Seat and mostly financed by the Next Generation Eu. The Iberian brand, only in the first phase of starting operations, will receive 397.4 million euros from institutions of various levels and various capacities (incentives for employment, for the development of depressed areas, for green mobility, for reconstruction post pandemic of the economic fabric …).

THE TCE OF MARTORELL

But, as anticipated, the project of the maxi industrial center is not the first of VW in this sense in the Iberian peninsula. In fact, at the end of 2021, to face the electrification of the brand it owns, it had built the Test Center Energy (TCE) in record time (18 months), a research and development center for new technologies related to the ecological transition. , strategically located near the Technical Center in Martorell, Spain.

With an area of ​​1,500 square meters and a 1.3 MW test capacity, the center can perform up to 6,000 analyzes per year on batteries and charging systems. Each battery is subjected to an average of over 17,500 hours of testing. At the moment, the TCE is focusing on cells for the MEB (electric) and MQB (hybrid) platforms, while in the near future it will be used to build and produce the power systems of the company's electric and plug-in hybrid cars, of Cupra and other brands of the Volkswagen Group.

ECONOMIC ELECTRIC CARS WILL BE BORN IN SPAIN

VW intends to produce low-to-mid-range EV cars in Spain. Starting with the ID.2, the entry level of the Wolfsburg manufacturer presented at this year's Munich Motor Show and scheduled for 2025. The ID.2 will be structured on the shortened version of the MEB platform (the A0) and will have a length of about 4 meters. On the base ID.2 should then arrive a sort of ID.2 X, which should please especially off-road lovers. The ID.2 is expected to cost between € 20,000 and € 25,000, but VW has already got its hands on: a lot will depend on raw material costs.

WILL FORD'S ELECTRIC INVESTMENTS SAVE THE VALENCIA PLANT?

But Ford should also arrive in Spain. Precisely in Almussafes (Valencia), in the east of the peninsula, where the US giant intends to produce its electric car ventures destined for Europe, at least according to what Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said: "It is a choice for industry and for work ”, Wrote the owner of the Iberian government on Twitter. Spain, with the Almussafes plant, which currently employs around 6,000 people (and it seemed even had to close) was preferred to the German plant in Saarlouis, where Focus is already produced. The plant, at the moment, works in fits and starts, due to the absence of materials. A situation that is leading the unions to ask for wage protection for the blue overalls.

MAERSK'S ECO FUELS

Still from a green perspective, there are the investments insured in Spain by the giant of the naval industry Maersk to manufacture the so-called “green methanol or e-methanol” in the Iberian country, with which the company intends to operate its boats in the future. For some time Maersk had been looking for a nation in the Mediterranean to create an "ecosystem" capable of guaranteeing the production of e-fuels starting from "green" hydrogen, generated through renewable sources and in the end the choice fell on Spain, considered one of the countries with the most favorable conditions to favor the global industrial reconversion plan of the naval giant, both for energy and environmental policies in place and for geographical position.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/il-governo-spagnolo-attacca-la-corrente-al-maxi-polo-per-la-produzione-di-batterie-per-auto-elettriche/ on Fri, 11 Nov 2022 06:46:11 +0000.