Chinese battery maker Gotion joins Volkswagen and PowerCo gigafactory in Sagunto
Volkswagen Group, PowerCo and China's Gotion High-Tech have reached a deal to deepen their strategic alliance around the battery gigafactory in Sagunto, elperiodic.com reports.
The battery gigafactory that Volkswagen Group and its subsidiary PowerCo are building in Sagunto is entering a new phase. The two companies have reached an agreement with Chinese battery maker Gotion High-Tech to deepen their strategic alliance around the Sagunto plant, according to elperiodic.com.
The outlet has not yet detailed exactly what Gotion's involvement in the project will look like, or what investment or role the Chinese company will take on at the plant. No timeline for the collaboration to take shape on the ground has been set either. For now, this is an announcement of intent between the three industrial groups, in a sector marked by cross alliances between European and Asian electric-vehicle battery makers. Volkswagen Group is the developer behind the Sagunto project, while PowerCo, its battery subsidiary, is the company that runs the plant on the ground. These alliances between manufacturers tend to follow a similar pattern: European groups seek access to the cell technology developed by Asian manufacturers, while the latter gain industrial footing in Europe's electric-vehicle market, which is in the middle of expanding its battery production capacity.
The Sagunto gigafactory holds a central place in the town's economic transformation, which for decades has combined the steel industry with, increasingly, the manufacture of parts for electric vehicles. A Chinese industrial partner of this size joining the project would add another player to a venture that already brings together German, European and, according to this report, now also Asian capital. For the local economy, any move around the gigafactory is closely watched: the plant has become a reference point for industrial employment in the district (Camp de Morvedre) and for the suppliers and contractors already working on its construction, as well as for local shops and housing, all alert to any news that could speed up or change the building timeline.
The scale of the project explains the interest that any corporate move around it attracts. According to Sagunto City Council, the gigafactory is expected to create 3,000 direct jobs and around 12,000 indirect ones once fully operational, figures that make it the largest industrial project currently under way in Camp de Morvedre. That level of employment is already translating into more work for supplier and contractor firms in the district that are involved in building the plant, as well as new workers arriving in a town that, according to the municipal count, has already passed 75,000 residents.
Interest in this deal also ties into the wider industrial shift under way in Camp de Morvedre in recent years. The district has traditionally built its economy around steelmaking, with ArcelorMittal as its main industrial reference point, and is now seeing battery manufacturing for electric vehicles emerge as a second major economic pillar. A deeper alliance between Volkswagen, PowerCo and an Asian manufacturer like Gotion would affect not only the gigafactory's direct workforce but also the indirect jobs created by the chain of suppliers already installed, or due to be installed, in Sagunto's industrial estates, one of the arguments the council itself has recently used to push for better public transport to those areas.
Neither Volkswagen Group nor PowerCo has separately confirmed the terms of the agreement with Gotion so far, nor have they said whether the Chinese company will take part as a technology supplier, a financial partner, or in some other way. Until the terms are officially confirmed, any figure on investment or job creation linked to Gotion's entry should be treated as an estimate, since none of the three companies has yet issued a joint official statement on the agreement. Sagunt al dia will keep following this story while waiting for the companies or official bodies to give more details on the scope of the alliance and its possible impact on employment and industrial activity in the town. According to elperiodic.com, with additional data from Sagunto City Council on the gigafactory's expected employment.