The Chinese Svolt Energy, a subsidiary of Great Wall, will house large-scale battery production for European EVs in Germany. It is building a completely new factory for this, close to the French border.
A transition to electric driving is being pursued rapidly in Europe and it is clear that the Chinese also play a major role in this. Not only are many electric cars already made in China, battery production is also often a Chinese story. In order to also respond to local production for European brands, Svolt will build batteries in Germany. A huge battery factory is due to open its doors near Saarbrücken at the end of 2023. An already existing facility in the same region is also part of the whole story, where the batteries are combined into battery packs.
The battery factory, which will be located in Überherrn, must, according to Svolt, provide enough batteries for 300,000 to 500,000 cars on an annual basis. The annual capacity is 24 GWh. These are nickel-manganese batteries, where cobalt is no longer used as a raw material. After all, that is a not undisputed raw material. This should also reduce the costs of the batteries. Svolt is investing € 2 billion in the new factories in Germany and expects to create around 2,000 jobs. It is not yet clear which car manufacturers Svolt hopes to work with for the delivery of the batteries.