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Volkswagen’s battery cell manufacturing unit in Salzgitter is making important progress, with the set up of equipment and gear now underway. In line with VW, this units the development nicely on schedule and readies the plant for collection manufacturing by 2025.
Beginning with some background, Salzgitter is named one of many first three battery factories Volkswagen is planning to construct. Aside from Salzgitter, there may be Valencia and St. Thomas in Ontario, Canada. Manufacturing is scheduled to begin in Salzgitter in 2025 and within the different two crops in 2026 and 2027. The full capability will quantity to 200-gigawatt hours per yr, sufficient for greater than two million electrical vehicles, in keeping with Volkswagen. The batteries to be made would be the new “unit cells” for quantity fashions. This can be a prismatic battery cell that’s for use in 80 per cent of the VW Group’s electrical autos in future.
All three factories shall be managed by Volkswagen’s devoted battery subsidiary PowerCo, and there was information right now on the corporate’s hiring offensive as nicely. PowerCo in Could had introduced plans to double its workforce and to rent worker no 1,000 this July. This has been confirmed right now.
Furthermore, PowerCo expects the variety of workers to develop to 1,500 throughout the yr. The common age is at the moment 38 years, and greater than 1 / 4 of workers have a world background, so the corporate. This was to be anticipated since PowerCo, from the beginning, negotiated with battery consultants from Asia in its seek for workers. The corporate additionally claims an above-average proportion of girls of greater than 30 per cent in comparison with the remainder of the trade.
PowerCo CEO Frank Blome added right now they had been constructing “an absolute prime workforce” and mentioned the corporate had grow to be “a magnet for skilled battery specialists who’re in brief provide and sizzling demand worldwide”.
In parallel, PowerCo can also be upskilling employees from the VW engine plant in Salzgitter for battery manufacturing, and Blome added the retraining was “in full swing”.
Unboxing Volkswagen’s “Salzgiga”
Volkswagen Group is reportedly investing roughly two billion euros in reworking the Salzgitter website from a motor plant to a cell plant and laid the muse stone in July 2022, then additionally introducing its far-reaching idea as a blueprint for all different battery crops.
Now, a yr later, the “unboxing” has begun in Salzgitter. Volkswagen invited Decrease Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil to unpack the primary industrial machine that shall be used within the cell manufacturing unit. Weil had additionally been current when the foundations had been laid. The machine he unwrapped right now measures round 10 x 3 meters and marks the beginning of a brand new development section. “Any further, the ramp-up of the machine and gear park begins,” writes Volkswagen. Greater than 2,500 customary containers are required for the supply of the gear alone.
Thomas Schmall, Volkswagen Group Board Member Group Expertise, mentioned, “A yr in the past, this was nonetheless an open area, however now we’re already organising the primary high-tech machines. This reveals the pace at which we’re placing our plans into apply. PowerCo is nicely on its option to changing into a worldwide participant within the battery enterprise and might grow to be a brand new, future-proof powerhouse for Decrease Saxony and Germany.”
Prime Minister Weil on website referred to as the manufacturing unit a “brave and smart determination by Volkswagen”. He added that they “should be certain that Germany will proceed to be the placement of battery cell manufacturing sooner or later regardless of excessive power prices”.
As soon as accomplished, the cell manufacturing unit will rely completely on renewable energies, and progressive manufacturing processes equivalent to dry coating will scale back power necessities by as much as 30 per cent, so VW.
With a development space of round 2 million sq. meters (equal to round 280 soccer fields), the Gigafactory Salzgitter is among the largest development initiatives in Decrease Saxony. The plant, which was opened in 1970, can even home the VW Group’s ‘International Battery Hub’. Right here, the group will develop, take a look at, manufacture and likewise recycle batteries on the element plant. As well as, a battery academy and a provider park shall be positioned in Salzgitter.
volkswagen-newsroom.com