The Volkswagen-Group is considering building another battery factory in Salzgitter together with US battery partner Quantumscape. The aim is to manufacture so-called solid-state batteries, a further development of the currently common lithium-ion batteries for electric cars.
Initially, the project revolves around a pilot line to test the technology with an annual production capacity of one gigawatt hour (GWh) of electricity storage. Quantumscape and Volkswagen then wanted to expand capacity by a further 20 gigawatt hours at the same location, according to a statement from Quantumscape in San Jose, California, on a letter of intent made on Friday with the US subsidiary Volkswagen Group of America. A decision on the location should be made by the end of this year.
A Volkswagen spokesman said on request that there was still no final decision on a pilot plant for the solid fuel cell in Salzgitter. This will be met in the fourth quarter at the latest. However, he restricted that this future technology could only be used with government funding Germany can be built. “Because without such funding, Salzgitter has little chance in a European and international comparison,” he said. At the moment it is only about the first step of a pilot line.
Volkswagen has already invested around 300 million euros in Quantumscape. Quantumscape is currently planning to set up a pre-pilot line for early testing of solid-state cells in test cars in San Jose. Solid-state batteries should achieve a higher energy density in the future and thus enable a longer range of electric cars, and charging should also be significantly accelerated. Experts believe the technology has good chances, but also a few years of necessary development work.
Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess (62) had only announced in March that VW wants to build a network of six battery cell factories across Europe by 2030, especially to meet the increasing demand between 2025 and 2030. Two of these locations have so far been set: In Skellefteå in northern Sweden, a plant for high-performance cells is being built with the Swedish start-up Northvolt, and a VW battery plant in Salzgitter is to produce the cost-saving standard cell for the Group’s mass models. Both plants are planned to have a capacity of 40 gigawatt hours each. With the possible solid-state battery plant in partnership with Quantumscape, batteries with around 60 gigawatt hours of storage capacity could ultimately be produced at the Salzgitter site.