When you hear “gigafactories” are part of a business plan, you probably infer some serious investment.
That company must be plunging ahead at the front of whatever market we’re talking about.
And then you hear it’s Volkswagen aiming to tackle the competition – including Tesla – in the electric-vehicle-battery race.
Bold.
The company sold 231,600 battery electric vehicles in 2020 — less than half the number of sales Tesla made, but an increase of 214% on the previous year.
Electrify America, a VW subsidiary, is planning to have around 3,500 fast-charging points in North America by the end of the year. In China, Volkswagen is targeting a total of 17,000 fast-charging points by 2025.
Tesla has 20,000 fast-charging points globally.
The plan to dramatically expand battery production at the German carmaker does, indeed, include six “gigafactories” in Europe by 2030, the company said on Monday.
What this means to the EV future is clear: VW is now providing support for its idea to become the world’s top seller of EVs in the next couple of decades.
Among some details presented by Motley Fool at fool.com:
“VW expects to lower its battery costs by up to 50% in entry-level segments and up to 30% in high-volume mid-market segments to ‘significantly below’ 100 euros ($119) per kilowatt hour.”
Back to the “gigafactories.” They are estimated to provide production capacity of 240 gigawatt hours per year, the company said, and that’s enough to power almost 4 million Volkswagen ID.3 electric vehicles.
The conquer-the-EV-world strategy depends on VW’s success at lowering the battery-system prices.
A unified battery cell will be launched in 2023 and installed in up to 80% of the group’s electric vehicles. The company also plans to recycle up to 95% of the raw materials involved in battery production.
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