Economy New factory in Brandenburg
EU overtakes China in investing in battery technology
Status: 01:13 | Reading time: 2 minutes
With the plant for cathode materials in Schwarzheide, BASF now produces in all three main markets worldwide
Source: BASF Schwarzheide GmbH
Domestic automakers depend on batteries from China. But that could change soon. According to the EU Commission, much more money is currently flowing into the new technology in Europe than in China. An important gap will be closed with the new BASF factory in Schwarzheide.
Last year, the European Union overtook market leader China when it came to investing in battery technology. “Three and a half times more investments were made in Europe than in China,” Vice President of the EU Commission Maroš Šefčovič told WELT AM SONNTAG. “We managed to bring 180 billion euros in private equity into the European battery sector.”
With the inauguration of a first factory for cathode material by BASF at the Schwarzheide site in southern Brandenburg on Thursday next week, Šefčovič believes that an important gap in the European value chain will be closed.
“We currently have about 30 Gigafactory projects in the pipeline, but what we were completely lacking in was cathode and anode active material production,” he said. It is an enormous opportunity that BASF is investing in Lusatia and concentrating on exactly what is missing in battery production capacities in Europe.
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Last week, the European Court of Auditors warned that the phase-out of the internal combustion engine, which is planned for 2035, is unlikely to succeed without a much faster expansion of battery production. However, Šefčovič still considers the European goals to be achievable.
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“Our first assessment was that by the end of the decade we should be able to cover 80 to 90 percent of the battery needs of the European automotive industry, and that is still our goal,” he told WELT AM SONNTAG. However, the challenge is great, “because energy prices are very high and we see global competition in the search for new critical raw materials.”
It is the aim of the European Union to make electric car manufacturers less dependent on international supply chains. According to an evaluation by the consulting firm Alix Partners, more than 98 percent of the battery cells sold in Europe have so far been produced by Asian companies. The Chinese group Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) is the world market leader.
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