BERLIN – Revolutionary breakthrough for clean mobility at the gates in the small but very advanced reality of excellent industrialists called the Czech Republic. The government of Prague has discovered huge lithium deposits in its territory and wants to build a gigafactory of batteries for e-cars to free the company. West from the Chinese model. The huge plant will be ready between 2026 and 2028, and will be built with joint investments from the Czech government, the public energy giant CEZ and the South Koreans of LG.
And obviously also from Skoda, the Czech and Slovak brand of the Volkswagen group, a historic brand that in the golden years of the twenties and thirties, when Czechoslovakia was more democratic, industrialized and at the technological avant-garde than France, giving the world contact lenses and engines. Porsche has in its history unforgettable premium cars such as the first Superb, something reminiscent of the Lancia Astura and the Maybach or British luxury sedans. And which also produces heavy machinery for the manufacturing industry of the best German or Italian level, nuclear power plants and spectacular giants such as the gigantic, very powerful electric locomotives of the Trans-Siberian railway, allowing the Russians to pay little and with very deferred installments. They are among the most powerful electric locomotives in the world.
The announcement came from the Minister of Economy Pavel Havvlicek who openly spoke and expressed the favorable opinion of CEZ and LG and indeed of Skoda. Unlike in Hungary or Serbia or elsewhere in the Balkans, where Chinese and Russian investments and credits take the lion’s share, Czechia has a trade and a structure of economic, technological and financial relations.
We are already in the operational phase of the Czech gigafactory of batteries for e-cars. CEZ number one, Daniel Benes, said he signed a memorandum with the government and other parties involved in the adventure, indicating the former disused Prunerov mine, located in northwestern Bohemia, as a potentially preferred site. Now CEZ only has to make the final formal decision as to whether and when to start with lithium mining, then the Czech assault on the political car sky will begin, whether this or that power likes it or not.
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