Germany: We are covered by our three gigafactories in Europe until 2028 – Volkswagen

A board member of Volkswagen, Thomas Schmall said Volkswagen’s battery needs are covered until 2028 by its three confirmed factories in Europe – the Salzgitter plant in Germany, Northvolt’s plant in Sweden and a planned plant in Valencia.

“With these three plants we are covered until 2028,” Schmall said at a press event at the Salzgitter plant, inaugurated last July.

The Valencia plant, confirmed last year, it is due to begin production in 2026. Volkswagen said it was waiting to hear what Europe’s response to the U.S will be. Inflation Reduction Act will be before progressing with plans to build further battery plants in the region.

The carmaker was standardising the structure of its factories to make production more efficient, Schmall said, describing the process of building new plants as “copy-paste”.

While the structure of the battery cells would also be standardised, the chemistry of the battery would differ for different models, Schmall said: Batteries for entry-level models will use iron phosphate, while medium-level models will have high manganese content and top models increased silicon content.

With its PowerCo battery unit, Volkswagen wanted to become a significant player but not the only player in the battery space, Schmall added, highlighting that 95% of the battery market is dominated by Asian players like CATL and LG Chem.