Does anything miss? In the past, German manufacturers screwed together Asian battery cells, now they are also dealing with the chemical details.
Image: Volkswagen AG
High energy prices, massive subsidies in other countries and sharply increased raw material prices make the production of battery cells in Europe less attractive. Will Germany miss the technical connection as a result?
The numbers on the slides with which Burkhard Straube introduces the annual class reunion of the German battery researchers have to be changed every year. Until now, they only knew one direction. Demand, production volumes, sales forecasts, everything grew, including the number of planned European factories. Recently, however, there have been setbacks, with Northvolt and Tesla postponing the construction of announced plants in Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein. “For the first time we are experiencing a clear headwind,” says Straube, who heads the lithium-ion battery competence network funded by the Federal Ministry of Research.
Three factors are responsible for the reluctance of potential investors: the high energy prices in Germany, the massive subsidies for battery factories in other countries and the sharp rise in raw material prices, especially for lithium, which can hardly be replaced in the foreseeable future. Should this lead to the batteries for electric cars from European production being built in China, Canada or the United States, the consequences would be fatal. The plan to employ the workers who are freed up by doing away with the combustion engine to build batteries would no longer work, the domestic share of added value in every car built would decrease, and the desired technological sovereignty would be gone.