The European industrial battery strategy boosts investments

The leitmotif for building a competitive battery cell production in Europe has always been clear. Success can only be achieved with combined public-private efforts, initiatives and alliances along the value chain. Looking at the recent announcements, one could see evidence that the European industrial battery strategy is bearing fruits.

A number of European sub-suppliers that traditionally located factories in Asia are now building factories in Europe. This summary of ongoing activities gives an interesting picture. To illustrate this in more details, let’s take the example of BASF, involved in the EBA250 activities from the very beginning. BASF is a leading producer of battery materials with no such production in Europe until now. During the very first EBA250 meeting in 2017, the company declared that once they could see cell production happening in Europe, they would invest locally. Less than three years later, this is getting concrete with BASF announcing a new battery materials production site in Germany as part of its multi-step investment plan to support the European electric vehicle value chain.

More than European companies investing in Europe, we also notice investments from Asian players on the continent. Whereas Asia is still the dominant player, this is a positive sign that Europe is on the rise when it comes to battery production.

The picture wouldn’t be complete without increasing investments throughout the value chain. And here again, we have witnessed several cases. One recent example comes from Infinity Lithium. The Australian company has indeed received support from EIT InnoEnergy to develop lithium production in Spain.  Fortum, BASF and Nornicke joining forces to establish a battery recycling cluster in Finland is another one.