Building a cell-making business is a major challenge, VW technology chief Thomas Schmall says.
Volkswagen AG is trying to build up a leading battery maker to supply its ever-expanding fleet of electric vehicles — a feat so challenging, it’s leading to sleepless nights at Europe’s biggest carmaker.
Whereas Mercedes-Benz Group AG is tapping a planned Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. factory in Hungary and has joined Stellantis NV and TotalEnergies SE in a €7.3 billion battery venture, VW is setting up some of its battery plants without partners. PowerCo will make unified cells designed to fit most of the group’s EV platforms, a strategy that could be a major advantage if the company can pull it off, but also risky.
It’s totally different. I think it’s one of the biggest challenges we as car guys will face. And it’s only possible because we are looking for a perfect team and have some experience doing that, technology-wise. As you know, we are a little bit behind existing players, so we need to catch up.Scaling up, I think we can match that at Volkswagen. We have been doing it for years worldwide.
The first step is that we cover our demand, which is really high. But we are looking also for third-market business and already have the first customers. One is Ford, because they are basing their cars on our MEB electric-vehicle platform. And the second one will be Mahindra, which will use our technology with the unified cell concept. We are looking for more, but this will be a second and long-term step.We are all dreaming to make cell production cheaper.
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