Czech Republic to assemble 250,000 batteries per year for Volkswagen Group

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In the race for European electrification, one of the players moving forward with more determined steps is the Volkswagen Group.
The most recent initiative was the opening of a battery assembly center in the second factory with the highest production volume in Europe: Mlada Boleslav (Czech Republic).

Currently, this factory focuses exclusively on Skoda models—Fabia, Scala, Kamiq, Octavia and the electric Enyaq—,
the brand of the group that represents 9% of the country’s GDP and holds more than a third of the market share.

Its lines have the potential to produce approximately 700,000 vehicles per year under ideal conditions —
in 2019 they were almost 600,000— and, after an investment of 130 million euros, from May
more than 250,000 batteries are released every year for zero-emission models that use the MEB platform.

This decision is a milestone for Skoda and the country, as it is the first site of the consortium to manufacture these components outside of Germany, which will
Braunschweig Outside of Europe, these activities have been delegated to Foshan and Shanghai, both in China.

With these four plants
The Volkswagen group plans to supply all of its production of electric vehicles, at least until its own gigafactories are operational. Of the six planned in Europe, three have been confirmed — Sweden, Germany and Spain — and a fourth are contested by countries in Eastern Europe.

For the Czech brand’s head of Production and Logistics, Michael Oeljeklaus, “the final location will not be announced until Wolfsburg. [el cuartel general del consorcio alemán] make a decision in the fall. The contenders are Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and of course the Czech Republic.

That last one is ”
a very favorable country, because it has the necessary stocks of raw materials and it is only 200 kilometers from Zwickau (Germany) », the factory where the group assembles the VW ID.3 and Cupra Born.

For now, however, Mlada Boleslav will focus on assembling the cells coming from Korea (
LG Chem) and Chinese (
CATL) in a specific center.
The initial capacity will be about 250,000 units per yearthat will grow by 50% more to 380,000 by 2023.

Of these, 350 daily units are expected to be assembled next year, about a third of the total, in the electric models of the Czech factory – for now the three variants of the Enyaq -, with the rest going to other group brands that use the CBG architecture: Volkswagen, Audi and Seat. This figure will have halved by the middle of the decade.

Skoda’s goal is not only to achieve a sales mix of 70% zero-emission vehicles by the middle of the decade, but also to do so with CO2-neutral production. Taking into account that
To achieve their desired speed in their assembly lines, it is necessary to move more than 4,000 tons of material per weekthe challenge has been met.

For Oeljeklaus, the key lies with logistics: in the future they will only use rail transport and electric trucks [actualmente son de combustión]which is charged while the trains are emptied at the factory.

As for the technical aspects of the mounted batteries, they can be configured in three constructions of up to 12 cells: 55, 62 and 82 kWh, can carry a load of 135 kW and recover 80% of their capacity in less than 30 minutes .

At its largest plant, Skoda also produces plug-in hybrid systems,
a technology whose days are numbered in the Volkswagen Groupas the board members see it as “a transition technology” to the final move to zero-emission models and as such they have not planned any new vehicles with this powertrain.

Of these, the Czech brand will launch three new models under the current Enyaq – one of them an urban model that may be made in Spain – although it cannot guarantee that the Mlada Boleslav factory will remain exclusive to its emblem.

That the successor to the Superb will be built at the Volkswagen plant in Bratislava (Slovakia) opens to some extent the ban on Czech factories and, in the words of Oeljeklaus: «
the Czech factory will probably be several brands in the future

Source: La Verdad

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