Volkswagen and Umicore unite to produce battery materials

By Redação AutoIndústria | Translated Jorge Meditsch

PowerCo, the new Volkswagen Group’s battery company, and Umicore decided to create a joint venture to produce precursor and cathode materials for batteries in Europe. With a 3 billion euro budget, the project foresees supplying PowerCo’s European battery cell plants after 2025.

“Cathode material is a strategic resource indispensable for battery production, representing about 50% of the cell’s total cost. Therefore, immediate and long-term access to a wide capacity means a very clear competitive advantage, said Thomas Schmall, president of PowerCo SE’s supervisory board, who directed Volkswagen in Brazil in the last decade.

The companies did not yet define the name or where will be located the joint venture production facility. Mathias Miedreich, Umicore’s CEO, anticipated a tendency to concentrate the production on Umicore’s just-inaugurated battery materials plant in Nysa, Poland. A decision should be readily taken.

With equal participation from both groups, the enterprise will have a capacity of 40-gigawatt hour by 2026 and can reach 160-gigawatt hour up to the end of the decade, enough to supply about 2.2 million full-electric vehicles.

VW plans to build six plants in Europe up to 2030. The first one to receive products from the joint venture will be Salzgitter, Low Saxony, in Germany, scheduled to open in 2025.

Photograph: Volkswagen