The area is home to many of the needed raw materials, it's highly dependent on renewable energy, and it offers the European automaker the option to invest in nearby mining operations. It will move forward with building an EV battery manufacturing facility in St. VW more recently announced that the agreement in Canada is official. "That volume will help us to bring prices down to be competitive and also still make money." Thomas Shafer, CEO of Volkswagen Passenger Cars shared via Electrek: This includes gathering the raw materials it needs for electric car batteries, some of which it plans to get as part of an agreement with Canada, which will ensure its EVs qualify for the newly revamped US federal EV tax credit. If VW Group can reduce costs significantly, undercut rivals, and sell its product for a healthy profit, it could then funnel the money back into its own EVs.īased on a recent report by Reuters, VW Group aims to greatly increase EV volume and, in turn, reduce costs. PowerCo aims to supply Ford with enough batteries to produce 1.2 million MEB-platform EVs.Ĭlearly, executives at Volkswagen Group believe the company can make money with the proposed venture, though the reach of the benefit will come down to how much it can reduce battery costs. The goal is for PowerCo to satisfy half of VW's battery needs while selling the rest to competing global brands, including Ford. However, in the meantime, automakers that are serious about the future of electric cars would be wise to make more immediate plans.Īccording to recent reports, Volkswagen's PowerCo battery unit is planning to grow exponentially and supply EV batteries across the globe in the future. More companies will be mining and refining materials, batteries will become more plentiful, and costs should begin to drop more notably. That said, as more carmakers switch to EVs, economies of scale should help reduce battery costs. While they have, there's also a growing demand for them, which can push costs in the opposite direction thanks to competition. We've been told for years that the cost of battery cells and EV battery packs would come down. Batteries are the most expensive part of an EV.
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