Expansion on pause
In recent years, it has been reported quite often that a new battery factory is being built somewhere in Europe, but for the time being we have not heard from Volkswagen anymore. The CEO states that the EV market is growing too slowly for this.
The Volkswagen Group will produce EV batteries here in Europe in two ‘gigafactories’, namely in Salzgitter, Germany and Valencia, Spain. That will remain the case for the time being, because according to CEO Oliver Blume there is no reason to plan more for the time being. “Based on market conditions, including the slow growth of the EV market in Europe, there is no business rationale to decide on further locations for the time being,” quotes Reuters.
The fact that this will not happen for the time being is also made known in an official statement from Skoda. It is of course not a coincidence that the decision comes out on behalf of Skoda. The Czech Republic is an important candidate for a third European gigafactory for battery production. So that won’t happen for a while.
So for now it remains at two large battery factories of the Volkswagen Group in Europe. While the initial idea was to build six. Please note; Blume is specifically talking about the European market, so that does not immediately rule out the arrival of new battery factories outside our continent. One is also planned in Canada, bringing the worldwide total to three.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl