Volkswagen has held a ground breaking event for its first home-grown battery factory in Salzgitter. The event, at the historic VW engine manufacturing facility, featured addresses from Thomas Schmall, Group CEO Herbert Diess, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as well as the CEO of the new business unit ‘PowerCo’ Frank Blome. PowerCo will oversee the battery manufacturing activities of the Volkswagen group going forwards, firstly with the Gigafactory in Salzgitter. The factory will be comprised of two identical buildings each scaling to 22 million cells and 24GWh per year, SOP is scheduled for 2025.

Beyond Salzgitter, the 5 additional battery factories in Europe announced at VW Power Day last year will be the next challenge for PowerCo, before expansion around the world, with Herbert Diess expressly mentioning the desire for a battery facility in the US. VW has already introduced the unified prismatic cell concept which will power 80% of the groups EVs. It is now also introducing the Standard Factory concept they hope will allow the most efficient scaling and learning opportunities. This will include moving upstream to standardise and supply its own equipment. In addition…

 

The full article is available to Rho Motion Members on the Membership Platform. If you are not a Member and would like to find out more, click here.

 

 

Image credit: Adobe Stock