The new electric car industrial belt in Valencia will be 60 kilometers long, the stretch separating Almussafes from Sagunto. In the first city, Ford installed it 50 years ago, and in the second, Volkswagen is planning a gigafactory for electric car battery cells, scheduled to start operations in 2026. Both cities experience these elections differently. In Almussafes, residents are concerned about job losses, even though the multinational has secured the power plant’s future with its electrification. In Sagunto, the effects of the future factory are not yet felt, so it hardly takes up any space in the campaign. Neighbors disagree on whether the impact of the new factory will be comparable to that of the old steel mill, comparing industrial investments to Ford’s.
Uncertainty in the city about the oval’s signature
The streets are exceedingly quiet and there is little movement other than truck traffic. Calm reigns in the Juan Carlos I industrial estate in Almussafes, where much of the auxiliary industry that has sprung up around the Ford plant in Spain is concentrated. Henry Ford II made the Valencian town of 9,000 people famous when he set up one of his factories there in the 1970s. The factory, which never slept, with three shifts and 2,000 vehicles a day, was shut down for a whole week due to a lack of components. The workforce has been chaining temporary files since 2020 and is in the midst of processing 1,124 layoffs and early retirements. The good news is that the Valencian factory will produce two new electric vehicles, details of which are yet to be determined. But the atmosphere is pessimistic because the next three or four years promise to be tough.
Almussafes residents wait their turn at a fruit and vegetable stall in the market next to election propaganda last Tuesday. ANA ESCOBAR
The center of Almussafes town, on the other hand, is busier than usual. Tuesdays are market days and street vendors occupy a large part of the town square, where the town hall is located, and a park where the elderly spend the mornings. Some of them are former factory workers. José Luis Rodríguez, 83, took early retirement from Ford at the age of 63 after working through the assembly plant and later the safety department. A native of Cáceres, he had worked at the Barreiros Chrysler plant in Madrid but was arrested and fined 100,000 pesetas in 1971 following protests during the negotiation of the agreement, for being “a dangerous agitator for society,” he recalls . Not wanting to pay, he spent three months in Carabanchel prison and when he was released, no one gave him a job. He ended up getting one at the Kelvinator factory, but they were closed. A friend called him and said Ford had a job and he was coming to Almussafes. “The days of the fat cows are over at Ford and it’s not going to get any worse,” says this retiree. Rodríguez sees the silent people. “Now comes the severance pay. The company does not want traumatic marches and is generally business friendly. There’s a lot of talk about the thousands of euros pouring into the city because of the victims, but it’s a shame,” he concludes.
The arrival of the multinational transformed the industry in the Valencian Community and is crucial for Almussafes as it has brought prosperity to this and several other regions over the decades. 65% of the municipal budget’s income – about 11 million euros out of 18 – comes from Ford and the industrial area, and unemployment in the city is about 8%. “When Ford goes down, Almussafes follows,” says Jesús, a receptionist at the Ramada Hotel, which houses maintenance workers in Juan Carlos Park who come to Ford and other outside companies to conduct inspections. There’s a lot of attraction, especially from corporate clients. “People are waiting to see how everything develops, especially since they will no longer invest in combustion engines and the new electric models are yet to come. There is uncertainty,” says Jesús. Laura, 46, works as a driver for a company in the industrial area that is not dependent on Ford. “Everybody used to live off Ford and now they don’t. “In the automotive industry, the task is fatal, it throws many people onto the streets and the ETTs take advantage of the crisis with very low salaries,” he criticizes.
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Angel Baigorri belongs to the second generation of a Navarrese family who came to Almussafes in 1992. He and his brothers run the sandwich cafeteria La Factoría, named after the factory next door. Its owners have a good relationship with Ford and the Polygon because they are a part of them and everything that happens to them affects them. He explains that they’ve gone from 10 employees to six because they’ve eliminated the day pass: “There are services that we have to shut down because they’re not in as much demand as they used to be and the numbers have to get out.” , says the hotelier. And he adds: “In particular, life is not bad, but people are discouraged because the one who leaves is no longer there and the one who stays does not lift his head.” what is to come. Ford is supposed to only have one car for two years, so there will be too many people for one model.”
José Luis Rodríguez (i) and Juan Pedro Uceda, both retired from Ford, in the city’s Central Park last Tuesday. PHOTO: Ana Escobar EL PAÍSANA ESCOBAR
At one of the long tables in the cafeteria, Eva Bernabéu, 52, shift manager at a company in the industrial area that promotes the integration of multifunctional workers, is hoping the layoffs and low production in the area will be a stopover. “I don’t see the future in black, I see it in grey. There will be fewer people going to work and a lot more, but we have to push it,” adds the veteran, who to this day admits she can’t buy electric cars because they’re too expensive.
The priority of the mayor of Almussafes, Toni González of the PSPV-PSOE, has for years been job creation: there are grants of 4,000 euros for each Almussafes employee and he admits that it is a “limited concern”. give. About 70 or 80 Almussafes residents could be affected by Ford’s adjustment plan. In addition, 14 and 15% of the workforce at the Polygon, which is also expected to see around 2,000 layoffs, are from the city. For this reason, the city council promotes companies that are not related to the automotive industry and even contacts companies in the province to help its neighbors with the procurement. “This has enabled us to curb the proportion of unemployed,” he adds. The situation is suspected to become complicated until electrification creates new synergies from 2026 or 2027 onwards. González believes that if Spain hasn’t developed a network of charging stations and there isn’t a tax policy that makes these cars more attractively priced, the switch to electric vehicles has accelerated. “We’re tightening the ropes,” says the mayor, who is asking that the surplus jobs in the Almussafes industrial area can be relocated to the Volkswagen gigafactory.
The effects of batteries, with the steel industry in the background
In Sagunto, the campaign for the municipal elections revolves around the most pressing and pressing problems of the citizens. The city’s name, with its Roman, iron and steel heritage, made thousands of headlines as it was chosen by Volkswagen as the location for the construction of its first electric car battery cell factory in Spain and one of the most important in Europe. Trucks moving earth can already be seen in the plots selected in the polygon, but it’s still early days. Its impact is not yet felt enough for the Gigafactory, which is slated to launch in 2026, to be the focus of the local campaign. Yes, it has become a central motto for the autonomy campaign of the President of the Generalitat, the socialist Ximo Puig. “O Belt or Volkswagen,” he repeats, referring to the corruption plot linked to the PP and the investments promoted by the Valencian government.
A woman in the historic fall of Sagunto last Wednesday. Monica Torres
However, during a visit last Wednesday to the city of 68,066 inhabitants, 25 kilometers from Valencia, all the residents interviewed said they were aware of the project. Most hope to create jobs (about 3,000 direct and nearly 12,000 indirect) by investing nearly €4.5 billion in construction, according to PowerCo, a subsidiary of the German multinational. This is one of the largest industrial investments in Spain in decades, comparable to the investment that led to the arrival of Ford in Almussafes.
“It’s very good, but you have to see it,” says a neighbor sitting on a terrace in the pavilion in the old town. “We’ll see if people benefit or if they go abroad,” says another. “I don’t think the impact is comparable to that of the steel industry, because at the time the entire port of Sagunto was living off it,” says a third of the large factory that traumatically closed in 1984 with the industrial transition.
The three are unaware of the two opposing voting booths set up by the PSPV-PSOE and the PP in the Glorieta. “No, the gigafactory doesn’t mark the campaign, it’s coming soon, but the associated investments, such as the construction of two hotels, are already there,” says socialist mayor Darío Moreno.
The PSPV-PSOE candidate gained support for his candidacy with the recent decision by the Generalitat and the government (via Sepides) to withdraw from the disputes he had with nearly a thousand landowners to lower the price of expropriations. Affected farmers complained about the ease offered to the world’s second largest automaker to settle in Sagunto, in contrast to the low prices offered to landowners. Today there is no large private investment without a prior cushion of public funds. The installation of the macro-photovoltaic system, which must provide part of the energy for the gigafactory and occupies a large area, is always controversial.
“We are happy that investments are coming to Sagunto, but now we are talking about local problems, which are numerous,” emphasizes the popular mayoral candidate Maribel Sáez from her stand.
One of the historical problems of the municipality is to build the space of a few kilometers that separates the historic center, where the Roman theater and the castle stand out as landmarks, from the only port, giving it continuity and life give blast furnace pardoned as a parole. Carmelo Quevedo’s real estate company has developments in this sector called Fusión and has not yet identified any movement for the future gigafactory. “The city will change a lot if it becomes a reality, but at the moment this is not the case and the city is not very attractive for tourism,” he emphasizes in his facility in the port.
From time to time, the siren of the steel industry sounds there, which 40 years ago still regulated the life of the residents of the core that was created in the heat of the industry. “Let’s hope the new factory will help young people,” says Javier, a retiree whose father worked at Altos Hornos. He has no doubt that, like his colleague Félix, the impact of the Gigafactory will be remarkable given that it is a sector with great futures, such as electric cars, although it has not yet taken off. “I think the two factories are comparable in terms of workforce,” says Vicente Moya, 85, who worked as a mechanic in the steel industry. “They say the blast furnaces were heavily polluted, but this one wasn’t. But what do we do with the dead batteries,” he wonders as he walks down a street in the port.
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Neighbors on a terrace next to the PP and PSVP voting booths in the Glorieta de Sagunto last Wednesday. Monica Torres