The EU aims to be self-sufficient in batteries by 2025
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2020/12/19 18:15:45
The European Union will be able to produce enough batteries to power its fast-growing fleet of electric cars by 2025 rather than relying on imported battery cells, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said on Thursday.
As part of a plan to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, the EU wants to boost local production of "green industrial base materials", including hydrogen fuel for making low-carbon steel and batteries to power environmentally friendly cars."I believe that by 2025 the EU will be producing enough batteries to meet the needs of the European car industry and even be able to export them," Sefcovic told the European Battery-online conference.
Currently, China produces about 80 percent of the world's lithium batteries, but Capacity in Europe is increasing rapidly.There are currently 15 large cell plants under construction in Europe, including the Swedish Northvolt plant in Sweden and Germany, the German plant of Ningde Times, a Chinese battery maker, and a second plant in Hungary of SK Innovation, a South Korean company.Sefcovic says the planned European plant will produce enough batteries to power at least 6m electric cars by 2025.
Despite the collapse in overall car sales as a result of the outbreak, sales of pure electric and plug-in hybrid cars in Europe are expected to double to 1m this year, according to Transport & Environment, a non-governmental organisation.
The European Commission predicts that there will be 13m low-emission cars on European roads by 2025, so they will need to invest further in battery production."We need to make a massive investment in building a complete European supply chain and Labour market to support the battery plant," says Jesper Wigardt, Northvolt's vice-president of communications.Sefcovic sees the EU's 750 billion Euro (approximately $890 billion) Novel Coronavirus Recovery Fund as a "ready-made tool" to support the project.
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