Europe powers up electric car battery drive
23 June, 2021
As electric car sales soar, Europe has started to build-up its capacity to produce batteries on the continent nonetheless it remains far from reducing its reliance on Asia.
China, Japan and South Korea produce most of the world's electric car batteries.
Europe now has projects to build 38 gigafactories with a combined gross annual output of just one 1,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) and around cost of 40 billion euros ($48 billion), according to a June report by Transport & Environment, a non-government organization.
This annual supply could possibly be reached by 2029-2030 and will be the equal to the production of 16.7 million battery electric vehicles, a T&E spokesman told AFP.
"Given the monstrous upsurge in demand, you will find a major stake accessible for manufacturers to break the battery makers' oligopoly," said Eric Kirstetter, a sector analyst at consulting firm Roland Berger.
"They will also need to ensure usage of materials for the electrodes (anode and cathode), which will determine the batteries' price and availability," he added.
In Sweden, the start-up Northvolt expects to attain total annual production of 150 GWh in Europe by 2030, with one plant under construction now and two much bigger ones on the drawing board.
Northvolt has previously said that production capacity would reach 32 GWh by 2024, or enough batteries for 600,000 electric vehicles each year.
In another report, Transport & Environment said battery electric vehicles could take into account new sales of units in the 27-nation EU by 2035 -- if policymakers introduce tighter CO2 targets and strong support for infrastructure to charge cars.
Automakers, which are under pressure to transition out of fossil fuel vehicles, are putting money into battery production.
German giant Volkswagen has committed to Northvolt and in addition plans to build five other battery plants.
Stellantis, which owns brands such as for example Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroen, Dodge and Fiat, is focusing on two of its, while electric pioneer Tesla really wants to make its future gigafactory near Berlin one of the biggest on the globe with 250 GWh of capacity by 2030.
European governments are backing the projects because they want the continent to keep up a significant role in future automobile manufacturing.
Asian manufacturers are also buying Europe, with the Chinese group AESC planning to use Toyota and Renault on battery plants in Britain and France.
Two South Korean companies, LG Chem and SKI, have already opened factories in Poland and Hungary, and China's CATL is building one in Germany.
European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic said in March that the continent had a need to achieve strategic independence in what has become a critical sector.
He wants European factories to cover the region's needs by 2025.
That is clearly a tall order, according to Oliver Montique, an analyst with Fitch Solutions.
Montique targets 2040 for the establishment of "an totally closed loop supply chain where in fact the the greater part of battery materials are extracted, refined, processed and produced into battery cells on the continent."
Europe really wants to build factories that pollute less than in Asia or america, and EU officials will work on a standard that could impose criteria how raw materials are obtained and used batteries are recycled.
To develop a fresh generation of batteries that are less reliant on the lithium-ion technology dominated by Asian companies, the European Commission launched a research and development program in January backed by 2.9 billion euros.
European factories could employ 800,000 people, the commission estimates, nonetheless they would need to learn quickly.
Battery factories may also need raw materials.
Demand for lithium is likely to soar by a multiple of 18 by 2030, the European Commission has forecast, and the sector may also likely need five times more cobalt.
Germany and the Czech Republic have substantial reserves of lithium, but Montique advises EU leaders to also ensure supplies from reliable partners.
"I'm thinking of Australia, Canada, Brazil and Chile," he said, "in order that the supply-side is unlikely to be threatened either through normal commercial constraints and/or political reasons."
Source: japantoday.com
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