The chief executive of Europe’s biggest auto manufacturer Volkswagen has said after the company’s emissions controversy and their continued move to low emission cars, building their own electric vehicle batteries is the next logical step.
The company recently finalized a deal in which forced redundancies in Germany would be halted for the next ten years in exchange for the loss of 20,000 jobs at its core VW brand. Part of the agreement involved VW creating 10,000 new jobs in relation to battery production and other electric products at plants within the country.
“We are making an effort to shift our operations towards clean energy and self-driving cars, so we need to plan for around 4 million batteries per year at least,” said CEO Matthias Mueller in a BBC interview on Thursday. “When we are considering battery numbers in this range then the only logical step is to build a plant specific to battery production. To purchase batteries from another company would not make sense.”
Currently, the German car giant buys batteries from third party suppliers in Germany, around the euro zone and Japan. Tokyo-based investment firm CITIC Tokyo International said that Japanese companies would stand to lose $1 billion per year if European car companies like VW manufactured their own batteries.
In other VW related news, ride-hailing firm Uber have said that Volkswagen has been in contact with them regarding possible collaboration between the two companies but no official talks have begun yet. When asked about the rumour, Mueller said they were interested in an equal partnership rather than being simply a supplier.
“The idea is to expand our business to incorporate possible alternatives to actual car ownership, like ride hailing. The vision is that one day you will be able to hail a VW ride and we would handle every aspect of the operation, from car manufacturing to the software that end clients would use. Because of that we are very interested in talking to current market leaders in the ride-hailing industry like Uber,” Mueller added.
