The European Commission this week approved a capital injection worth no less than € 2.9 billion into the European Battery Innovation project.
Most of the electric and electrified models you can buy today have Chinese, Japanese or South Korean-made battery packs. The European Battery Innovation project has been set up to make the European car industry less dependent. The European Commission gave the green light on Tuesday for almost € 3 billion in financial support for this project.
In total, this involves a capital injection of € 2.9 billion, for which twelve member states of the European Union are drawing the purse. Countries such as Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Belgium and Poland put money on the table. By the way, the Netherlands is not, our country is not part of the European Battery Innovation project. The participating countries also hope to collect an additional € 9 billion from investors at a later stage.
The European Battery Innovation project is the second so-called Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI), part of the European Battery Alliance that was founded in 2017. This alliance supervises the production chain of battery packs. By 2025, European battery production must be mature enough to produce batteries for six million electric cars annually. Companies are also part of this partnership, including BMW, the German Tesla division, car factory Valmet and battery developer Northvolt.