Volkswagen plans to establish own battery factory
Germany:
Volkswagen, the leading auto maker is planning on building their own battery
production unit in Salzgitter, Germany. The decision of Volkswagen in foraying
into the production of e-batteries is primarily to foster e-mobility in
automobiles.
It is believed that the company’s management
in order to overcome its dependency on Asian producers for batteries have come
up with this decision for manufacturing e-car batteries on their own.
The car maker further indicated that their
main focus would be on producing more proficient battery cells which will
revolutionise the global electric vehicle market in the coming years. The
company aims to become the world leader in e-mobility technology by 2018.
The factory is expected to start in company’s
plant located in Salzgitter, Germany which is currently manufacturing
conventional combustion engines. A company official claims that with due course
of time the demand for these engines is anticipated to decline and therefore company
needs to find an alternative in order to sustain in future.
According to a recent report published by TechSci Research, “Global
Automotive Battery Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2019’’ the global automotive battery market is
forecast to surpass USD42.6 billion by 2019. In value terms, the passenger car
battery market is the most dominant automotive battery segment, followed by
commercial vehicle, two-wheeler, three-wheeler and OTR battery segments. Due to
large fleet size and increasing penetration of passenger cars, predominantly in
developing countries, the passenger car battery market is expected to continue
its dominance in the global automotive battery market during the forecast
period as well. Asia-Pacific is the most dominant region for the global
automotive battery market. This market dominance can be attributed to the
region’s huge and expanding two-wheeler and passenger car fleet, especially in
China, Japan and India.
As
per TechSci Research, the decision of the Europe’s largest car manufacturer to
innovate and diverse their operations by setting up a battery production
facility is expected to give an edge over the competitors by having OEM tie ups
for batteries with other leading electric vehicle manufacturers consequently facilitating
the company to capture a significant market share in the automotive battery
market globally.