Volkswagen decides to locate its battery factory in Sagunto, Spain due to the synergies with Ford.
The German manufacturer has approved that its battery gigafactory for electric cars in Spain, with a capacity of 40 GWh, be implanted in the town of Sagunto (Valencia), on land next to the port of said municipality that has just been converted into industrial land.
Valencian generalitat. The plant, which the Ford Almussafes center would also use if the two zero-emission models it opts for by 2025 is awarded, will generate around 3,500 jobs.
The Volkswagen Group “has already made a firm decision” on the location of its battery gigafactory in Spain , which will be located in Sagunto (Valencia), as confirmed to La Tribuna de Automoción by sources of all solvency familiar with the industrial plans of the German consortium.
These same sources assure that the manufacturer’s leadership has already approved the site and that it will probably be communicated “in the coming weeks” , even before the company, together with Seat, registers its comprehensive electrification proposal in the Strategic Project for Recovery and Economic Transformation in the Electric and Connected Vehicle sector (Perte VEC), once the call is opened.
This last milestone with its publication in the BOE would take place, at the latest, at the end of February, as this publication advanced , although the window to present the business groups will not be operational until a month later to give the sector more margin to prepare the documentation and be able to meet the conditions.
With the choice of Sagunto, which many media have already advanced in recent days that it was the favorite location to receive the plant, the VW Group has ruled out the other candidates that entered the final phase, which were Aragón and Extremadura . In a first phase, Catalonia was rejected .
According to the sources consulted by this publication, the battery factory, which will be one of the key parts of the German manufacturer’s project to manufacture electric urban vehicles in Martorell (Barcelona) and Landaben (Navarra) from 2025 and 2026, respectively, it will generate around 3,500 jobs when it is fully operational, which would happen, a priori, at the end of the decade when it is expected to reach its maximum capacity of 40 GWh .
Although the three options that the company had on the table were competitive for different reasons, Sagunto has won the game, fundamentally, due to the agreement that the VW Group has with Ford for collaboration in the development of electrification.
In this sense, if the American brand makes effective the award to the Almussafes (Valencia) plant of the two zero-emission cars for 2025, which it is opting for together with the German center in Saarlouis, the batteries that they would mount would come from the factory in Sagunto accumulators.
Sources from the US firm have told this medium that the decision on the supply of these components to any future project has not yet been made.
“With this workload and the one generated by the Martorell and Landaben cars, a great deal of activity would be achieved in the cell production facilities,” say sources in the sector, who add that the possibility is open that even other car manufacturers could benefit. .
The Generalitat Valenciana finalizes the ground
The battery factory, which will be the third of the VW Group in Europe —it plans to have six operational by the end of 2030 with a combined capacity of 240 GWh—, will be located in the industrial estate next to the port of Sagunto, called Parc Sagunt II , in land covering 5.6 million square meters.
For the execution of the project, the Government of Ximo Puig is speeding up the procedures and has already enabled this space as industrial land, after approving the strategic environmental and territorial declaration (DATE) of the special plan for the second phase of this manufacturing area, according to confirmed the Ministry of Ecological Transition in a statement on February 17.
This step was an unavoidable requirement that was regulated in the Royal Decree Law that created the figure of the Perte to be able to implement any strategic initiative supported by European reconstruction funds, as is the case.
When the Generalitat Valenciana made public the environmental authorization, it pointed out that they were in a “magnificent” position to receive large-scale industrial investments , a position that anticipated their privileged situation to implement the battery plant, something that, finally, will come true.
The VW Group decides to locate its battery factory in Sagunto due to the synergies with Ford, February 23, 2022
