Germany and France want to establish a European consortium for the development and production of batteries for electric vehicles.
The German and French Ministries of Economy have submitted a letter of intent for such a consortium to the European Commission. This reports German newspaper FAZ, which has seen an accompanying letter to the agreement. In the letter, the ministries ask the European Commission for permission to establish the consortium.
Large-scale and sustainable production
The consortium should consist of the French PSA group - which includes France's Peugeot and Citroën and Germany's Opel - and a French battery manufacturer. The latter party will not be named. The consortium should produce batteries for electric cars on a large scale and in a sustainable way.
The letter does not specify the location where battery production is to take place. However, industry sources report to FAZ that among the sites being considered is an Opel plant in the German city of Kaiserslautern. This city is not far from the French border, which could be an advantage given the involvement of French carmakers.
'Airbus for batteries'
It is not the first time that voices have been raised in favour of putting more effort into battery production for electric vehicles on European soil. For instance, EU commissioner Maros Sefcovic already advocated a European consortium for battery production in an interview with German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in October 2017.
Sefcovic then called this consortium the 'Airbus for batteries'. Thus, Airbus emerged from a partnership between French, German, British and Spanish aircraft manufacturers, aiming to counterbalance US competitors. Sefcovic advocates applying this approach to the battery industry as well, which the EU commissioner says is necessary to prevent the EU from falling further behind in this field. Sefcovic then announced the availability of €2 billion in European funding for parties participating in such a consortium.
Less reliance on Asia
Also, Germany and France have both previously announced separately to invest in battery production for electric vehicles. For instance, in November 2018, Germany announced it would invest one billion euros to support electric vehicle battery production in both Germany and Europe. The main aim of this plan is to make the German car industry less dependent on Asian battery producers.
German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier announced at the time that he wanted to cooperate with other European countries. Minister Altmaier reported that the German government was in talks about this with France, Poland and Austria, as well as several commercial parties.
For its part, France announced in February that it plans to invest 700 million euros over the next five years in the production of batteries for electric vehicles. This investment is part of a cooperation with Germany, which aims to eventually produce batteries on both French and German territory.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: FAZ
Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung
