BERLIN — Volkswagen Group’s battery subsidiary Powerco and Belgium’s Umicore plan to increase their cooperation on cathode materials to Canada, which the carmaker is contemplating as the situation of its first North American cell manufacturing unit, VW mentioned on Thursday.
“Web site search in Canada for our first battery manufacturing unit in North America begins now!” Volkswagen mentioned on its official LinkedIn Web page. “Our CEO Oliver Blume and the Canadian Minister for Innovation, Science and Trade François-Philippe Champagne signed an extra settlement to the present Memorandum of Understanding to determine appropriate places for a brand new PowerCo SE cell manufacturing unit.”
The German auto big signed a memorandum of understanding with supplies agency Umicore for a long-term strategic partnership geared in direction of future cell manufacturing within the area, a press release mentioned.
In September, Volkswagen and Umicore introduced a $2.9 billion battery components three way partnership to provide PowerCo’s European battery cell factories with key supplies from 2025 onwards.
In the meantime, Umicore on July 13 dedicated to spending about $1.1 billion to construct an built-in manufacturing plant for cathode and precursor battery supplies outdoors Kingston, Ont.
Blume and Champagne additionally signed an addendum to their present memorandum from August, agreeing to determine appropriate websites for the deliberate cell plant.
“Battery know-how is essential for our technique,” mentioned Blume, including that Volkswagen was dedicated to investing in North America.
Blue added extra remark within the LinkedIn publish.
“The EV market in North America is at a turning level and we’re dedicated to investing throughout the complete area to leverage this historic probability for Volkswagen and our prospects,” he mentioned.
Automotive Information Canada contributed to this report.
