According to the European "Automotive News", on December 13, Volkswagen said in a statement that it will invest 2 billion euros to create a new company for its battery business in Salzgitter, Germany, in order to integrate raw material processing, battery development and other businesses, and manage the group's future layout of six battery factories in Europe. In addition, the new company will also develop new business operation models for the recycling and reuse of used car batteries.
Layout battery full chain
Through a series of means such as the establishment of subsidiaries, Volkswagen is expanding its battery-related business and making it one of its core competencies. Led by Frank Bromme, who is in charge of Volkswagen's battery division, An Shunhao, who joined Volkswagen at the end of November, will lead the development of the battery. An Shunhao previously served as the head of global battery development at Apple, and before that, he worked at LG Chem and Samsung. It is understood that An Shunhao previously served as the vice president of research and development at LG Chem, and participated in the research and development of LG Chemical's ternary lithium battery. In addition, Anshun Hao also has a large number of patents on batteries, and involves LG Chem's main power battery products.
Thomas Siemel, member of volkswagen's management committee and CEO of the components company, said: "Volkswagen's goal is to provide users with powerful, inexpensive and sustainable use of car batteries, which also means that Volkswagen needs to actively intervene in the entire chain of the battery industry. The establishment of a new 'Battery Center' in Salzgitter is also to encourage the company to continue to innovate in the battery business. ”
At Power Day in March this year, Volkswagen mentioned that it would invest heavily in battery manufacturing. In Europe alone, Volkswagen will build a six-seat super battery plant with a total annual capacity of 240 GWh by 2030. Among them, the battery factory in Salzgitter will start mass production of standard cells in 2025, with an initial output of 20 gigawatt hours and a later increase to 40 gigawatt hours. In terms of core batteries, Volkswagen plans to adopt a new standard battery, which will be introduced and applied to about 80% of the electric models of its brands in 2023.
IPO plans
In order to catch up with Tesla, the benchmark in Diess' eyes, Volkswagen plans to invest 89 billion euros in areas such as electric vehicles and digitalization over the next five years. Even more noteworthy is Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess' further planning for the battery business.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Diess previously said that Volkswagen is preparing to partially sell or list the battery division, while preparing the battery division to cope with the capital market, including the introduction of external partners. According to Diess' forecast, if the battery is successfully listed independently, the company expects to achieve sales of 20 billion euros by 2030.
On December 8, Volkswagen announced strategic partnerships with three battery technology companies. The three companies are materials technology company Umicore, semi-solid-state battery development company 24M Technologies and cleantech company Vulcan Energy Resources, all of which aim to industrialize battery technology and mass-produce more sustainable batteries. Among them, the Belgian company Umicore will form a joint venture with Volkswagen to provide lithium battery anode raw materials.
"Forbes" pointed out that as Volkswagen increases its investment in electrification transformation, Volkswagen's electrification transformation has gradually moved upstream of the industrial chain, forming a full line of investment in battery research and development, manufacturing and charging management. The ultimate goal of the investment in the battery business is for the long-term interests of Volkswagen. At present, Volkswagen's electrification strategy is still in its infancy, in order to achieve the goal of cost reduction and efficiency increase, the development of the battery business can help Volkswagen achieve multi-level extension and expand the scope of profitability, rather than just putting "eggs" in the "basket" of the electric vehicle sales business.
The fourth largest shareholder of China's battery factory
In the Chinese market, Volkswagen also has new moves. On December 15, Guoxuan Hi-Tech issued an announcement that the company issued 384 million non-public A-share shares to a specific target Volkswagen (China) Investment Co., Ltd., and it was listed on December 15. The number of shares held by Volkswagen China increased from 56.4676 million shares to 441 million shares, and the shareholding ratio increased from 4.41% to 26.47%, becoming the largest shareholder of Guoxuan Hi-Tech.
It is reported that the fundraising of this non-public offering of shares will be mainly used for the industrialization project of the new Guoxuan battery with an annual output of 16GWh high specific energy power lithium battery, the new Guoxuan material with an annual output of 30,000 tons of high nickel ternary cathode material project and supplementary working capital.
As early as July this year, Volkswagen reached a strategic cooperation with Guoxuan Hi-Tech. Guoxuan Hi-Tech will act as a technical supporter to assist Volkswagen in the construction of a battery plant in Salzgitter, Germany. At the same time, Guoxuan Hi-Tech will also develop the first generation of standard batteries for Volkswagen's conventional mass production models. According to the statistics of the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, in the first 11 months of this year, Guoxuan Hi-Tech's domestic power battery loading volume was 6GWh, with a market share of 5.1%, ranking fourth in the industry. Industry insiders believe that Volkswagen's move may be able to strengthen its control of the Chinese supply chain, increase the domestic production rate of the car, and thus improve the performance in the Chinese market.