The Spanish automotive industry’s transition to the production of battery-powered vehicles seems to have no turning back. All brands with an industrial presence in Spain have taken advantage of European aid to secure production lines for a component that accounts for a third of the cost of an electric car: the battery. Stellantis, Seat, Ford and Renault have launched the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation of the Electric Vehicle (Perte-VEC) to jointly secure almost 100 million euros in non-repayable grants for the commissioning of electric battery assembly lines, to which are added more are added Three gigafactories that supply the batteries connected to these batteries. The tender closed last week by the Ministry of Industry achieved the desired objective: the creation of the first protective cable for Spanish factories in the face of disruption to the sector, which required nearby facilities to save a critical component such as batteries. but also heavy and expensive to transport. In this aid line, 550 million euros were distributed, which is in addition to the 877 million euros distributed in 2022 in the first call of this Perte, less than 30% of the amount foreseen, which has forced the activation of new windows.
As a counterpart to these investments, projects that are not so close to the vehicle assembly lines have been carried out more discreetly. Activities such as the extraction and processing of minerals or the recycling of already used batteries, which could be an important business area in the future due to the shortage and increase in the price of raw materials, have covered just a quarter of the Next Generation funds distributed as part of this tender have two Branches: One focuses on the electric battery value chain (550 million in total in addition to credits) and the other focuses more on the production of vehicles and components (344 million in subsidies and 215 million in soft loans).
“We are very proud of the achievement of this appeal. It is a complete success and corresponds to industrial reality. We have approved 26 projects from 21 different companies and all of them are crucial to the new industrial revolution,” says Héctor Gómez, acting Minister of Industry of EL PAÍS, highlighting the improvement of jobs in the automotive industry and greater “social cohesion” territorial “.
The map of the Perte-VEC funding in its version for electric batteries shows a strategic distribution across the area of the new battery cell factories. The Volkswagen Group’s gigafactory in Sagunto (Valencia), which was decided in Perte’s first call, will now be joined by the Envision factory in Navalmoral de la Mata (Cáceres) and, presumably, the one that Stellantis will build in Figueruelas (Zaragoza). , the latter It is still pending major public funding after receiving 56 million, an amount far from the 200 million that the Franco-American group sought. Nevertheless, these two entities have absorbed almost half of the non-repayable aid distributed under this call (a total of 528 million euros, excluding allocated soft credits), to which other smaller ones are added. A project notable for its innovative spirit is that of Basquevolt, which aims to produce more advanced solid-state batteries in Vitoria. It receives 14.6 million to produce batteries that give vehicles greater autonomy.
The allocated funds (only 21.2 million are unallocated, in addition to 187 million loans with advantageous interest rates) will be accompanied by investments worth billions. Of the 26 approved projects, nine relate to investments focused on the extraction and processing of raw materials and the recycling of batteries to obtain new resources. The part of the value chain that a report from the European Court of Auditors should support in order to become competitive with China and the USA in the field of electric cars is left with a quarter of the total aid from this Perte window., 123 million euros.
Change of criteria in the final phase
These types of investments, further removed from the direct supply of automobile factories, have taken a big step in the recent allocations of the Ministry’s technicians. BASF’s project to build a new metal refining plant in Tarragona was approved at the end of October with a funding contribution of 15.8 million. Lotte secured 49.26 million euros last Wednesday with an investment of 400 million euros in the production of electrical foils, a basic element for battery cells. Both reports had previously been dismissed and only saved after the deadline for making allegations had expired. These investments were also ultimately added to the plan for the production of lithium hydroxide in Cáceres by Tecnologia Extremeña del Litio with an allocation of 18.8 million and other projects.
“We have not managed to create a high-performance industrial sector and our view of the economy is always so short-term that it costs more to carry out these types of projects: Spain has little to say about electric car technology,” complains Luis Romeral, director of the Motion Control and Industrial Applications Research Group at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, about the difficulty of implementing industrial ideas that are more independent of automobile factories. In the end, the ministry rejected further proposals from Basf, five from Ficosa and even an investment to build a battery recycling center in Seat.
“Yes, there are initiatives, but from an investment point of view they are not that big, but there are projects for components, battery management or other connections… But at the level of investments it is true that they are not so attractive,” says Míriam Pérez, director from PWC Consulting. Jordi Esteve, partner of the consultancy, affirms and points out that the time may not yet have come when Spain has all the production factors of a battery: “Some of these projects could – ironically – be born in the Perte-VEC 74 or without help, But at some point the time will come when, once you have the two or three cornerstones of production, you fill in the gaps that are missing.”
New hotline
Gómez, who has overcome the fear of repeating the fiasco that was the first call of the Perte-VEC, on which barely 29% of the available resources were spent, calls for “not to distance Line A”. [centrada en baterías] of B, which is specifically focused on the value chain and for which we received 75 investment plans”, and the award of which is expected in the first quarter of next year. During the same period, it is planned to create a new line, which is expected to be the final amount of aid for the automotive industry, 1.2 billion euros, for which there are still no clear criteria for its distribution.
“It will be a line that gives continuity to the existing Perte and corrects its deficiencies,” explains the Minister of Industry, who is in any case optimistic about the distribution of resources, which together are expected to mobilize 8.6 billion euros in investments. The novelty of this last line of assistance will be that it will be carried out by the National Innovation Company (Enisa), a small public body that has a budget of about 120 million euros this year. The state economic entities are the oxygen tank that the executive branch has found can extend the time frame for companies to invest.
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