© dpa
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Shares of Volkswagen rose more than 9% on Tuesday, a day after the announcement that the company will open 6 “gigazavod” for batteries for electric vehicles and plans to double sales of such models in 2021. The market valuation of the German corporation approached 150 billion dollars.
The world’s second-largest carmaker has shown that it is turning to a leading position – and is challenging American Tesla – in electric vehicles. The new plants, as well as a global network of charging stations, should be ready in several stages by 2030.
The first plant is to operate in 2023 in conjunction with the Swedish Northvolt in Helleftö, northeastern Sweden. Two years later – in 2025 – their plant in the German city of Salzgitter should be put into operation, but completely controlled by the Germans.
It follows a site in 2026 in Spain, France or Portugal in 2026 and another in 2027 in Poland, the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Two more plants are due to appear by 2030, but no potential countries are mentioned. Stefan Weil, the prime minister of Lower Saxony, was quick to say that the Baltic coast of the province would be an ideal place, including because the power supply from wind turbines would fit into the company’s “green” vision.
The first two plants are already listed in Volkswagen’s financial plans, but there is an “in-depth discussion” for the others and the answers will depend on the corporation’s financial performance.
“Our transformation will be unprecedented. E-mobility has become a core business for us,” said Herbert Dees, CEO of an event attended by his colleagues from BP, Enel and Iberdrola.
In partnership with the listed companies, Volkswagen plans to operate a total of 18,000 fast charging stations for electric vehicles by 2025. This is a 5-fold increase on this network. EUR 400 million will be invested in the initiative. “We’ll make refilling as easy as filling your tank,” Dees said. By the middle of the decade, this should cover one third of the need for public charging stations in Europe.
Approximately as many (17,000) stations are planned for China and 3,500 for North America for the same period.
The presentation showed plans for a prismatic battery cell to be produced from 2023. This is a different model from Tesla’s, it looks like a hardcover book, but is still more expensive. “In general, we will lower the prices of battery systems to less than 100 euros per kilowatt hour. This will finally make e-mobility an affordable and dominant technology,” said Thomas Schmal, a board member of Volkswagen. This is a price that is believed to make the electric car really competitive with one with an internal combustion engine.
The company clearly wants to limit its dependence on supplies and production in Asia, as well as to have control over the whole process in Europe.
Energy plans also include the opportunity to make money from electric cars – when they have accumulated excess energy from their solar systems, they will be able to supply it to the grid at home.
Last year, Volkswagen produced just over 422,000 electric cars.
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