GDANSK/BERLIN — Volkswagens goal to build 200 gigawatt hours of electricity battery capacity in 2030 is not “set in stone” and the automaker will be monitoring how demand for electric vehicles (EVs), the director of the battery division told German newspaper FAS on Friday.
“Our goal is realistic, but it is not set in stone. Building battery cell factories is not a goal in itself. The expansion of the factories will depend on how the market for electric cars “is developing,” said Thomas Schmall, according to pre-released excerpts of the interview that will be published in full on Sunday in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.
Volkswagen had said in 2021 that it wanted to build 240 gigawatt hours of battery capacity by 2030, of which 200 gigawatt hours would be built by its battery subsidiary PowerCo. It aimed to have six factories in Europe by the end of the decade.
But Schmall has since reevaluated that goal several times, leaving open the question of whether the automaker will build additional factories, including one in Eastern Europe, or expand existing plants.
PowerCo’s three announced power plants — in Valencia, Spain, Ontario, Canada and Salzgitter, Germany — have a combined capacity of up to 170 gigawatt hours.
The factories in Spain and Canada could be expanded, but it remains to be seen whether the carmaker will actually do so, said Schmall, who declined to provide details on when a decision would be made.