German Automotive Manufacturer, Volkswagen (VW) has announced investment plans worth $20.38 billion to build its own EV battery.
This sudden move by the company is expected to create 20,000 jobs and generate $20.38 billion in annual sales.
“The battery cell business is one of the cornerstones of our New Auto strategy which will make Volkswagen a leading provider of the sustainable, software-driven mobility of tomorrow,” VW CEO Herbert Diess said in a statement. “Establishing our own cell factory is a megaproject in technical and economic terms. It shows that we are bringing the leading-edge technology of the future to Germany!”
According to a recent announcement, the automaker will create a new company called Power Co to oversee the vast effort as VW races to secure enough capacity, materials, and supplies to power its EV ambitions. Power Co will manage VW’s entire battery supply chain, from research and development of new technologies to the mining of the raw materials to end-of-life recycling.
The news was announced at a ground-breaking ceremony for the company’s first battery plant in Salzgitter, a city in Germany’s Lower Saxony.
Last year, VW unveiled plans to build six EV battery cell production plants in Europe by 2030, including the facility in Salzgitter and one in Skelleftea, Sweden. A third plant will be established in Valencia, Spain, and the fourth factory will be based in Eastern Europe.
The company is also exploring plans to build future gigafactories in North America.
The EV battery plants will eventually have a production capacity of 240 gigawatt-hours a year.
Starting in 2023, VW plans to roll out a new unified prismatic cell design of its batteries that will be installed across the automaker’s brands.
The goal is to have this unified cell design powering up to 80 percent of VW’s electric vehicles by 2030.
VW also has contracts with two other major EV battery producers, Samsung and CATL.