VW secures battery cells from array of Asian suppliers

Volkswagen has ordered batteries worth 40 billion euros or almost 50 billion dollars, which is what Tesla is worth at the stock market to date. For VW, this means they have doubled the order volume in just a month and are now ready for the Roadmap E.

At least for the first phase that will see the carmaker launch 80 electrified models with 30 of them to be all-electric. In their strategy, VW had earmarked 50 billion euros to procure the batteries needed to power the projected e-fleet (150 GW). Back then VW had remarked that this is the equivalent to four Gigafactories.

++ Kindly see an update of this article below. ++

And herein lies the problem. As Volkswagen is not making any battery cells themselves yet, they still expect cell makers to give them a discount for sheer volume. But with demand this high, none of the established makers had been particularly forthcoming.

It is then of little surprise then that VW CEO Diess has rekindled ideas for a Battery Airbus in Europe regularly lately (we also reported in our email newsletter).

However, after their initial struggle to find any suppliers willing to lower their prices earlier, things started to look better for VW in March when they managed to secure a first few suppliers, among them CATL for orders worth 20 billion euros.

Update November, 13, 2018: Back then, VW had not named any other suppliers. Today though, SK Innovation has joined the growing circle. According to Volkswagen, SK Innovation will cover part of the demand for battery cells in Europe. Other suppliers of battery cells to VW include CATL, LG Chem, and Samsung SDI.

fortune.com, hybridcars.com, volkswagen-newsroom.com (update SK Innovation)