Volkswagen Enters New Partnerships to Advance EV Production
Volkswagen has entered into three new partnerships related to electric vehicle batteries, as the German automaker looks to transition its entire portfolio of cars, trucks and SUVs to zero-emission vehicles by 2040.
The three separate partnerships, all of which were announced Wednesday, are with materials technology group Umicore, battery specialist 24M Technologies and Vulcan Energy Resources, a company that is planning to open a lithium brine project in Germany.
Volkswagen’s joint venture with Umicore will supply the automaker’s European battery cell factories with cathode materials, a key building block of lithium-ion batteries. The JV will have an initial production capacity of 20 gigawatt-hours, with the aim of scaling to up to 160 gigawatt-hours by 2030. The materials will feed VW’s planned Gigafactory in Salzgitter, Germany.