Spain to invest billions in local EV industry

Spain plans to invest a total of 4.3 billion euros by 2023 to boost the production of electric vehicles and batteries in the country. The programme is to be financed mainly from the EU’s reconstruction fund.

This was announced by the government in Madrid. A further 19.7 billion euros in investments are to be made by the private sector by 2023, triggered by the government funding. Spain’s government expects the new programme to create up to 140,000 new jobs. By 2030, the car industry is expected to account for 15 per cent of Spain’s economic output.

“It is important that Spain responds and anticipates this change in the European automotive sector,” said Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Spain is the second largest exporting car country in Europe after Germany – not only with Seat and Cupra, but also plants of Stellantis, Renault, Ford and Daimler, for example.

With this project, the government wants to boost not only the industry, but also the sales of electric cars. The goal is for the number of newly registered electric vehicles to reach the 250,000 mark in 2023 – compared to 18,000 in 2020.

In April, Spain’s government had already launched its new eMobility subsidy programme Moves III for purchase premiums and charging infrastructure, which will initially have a budget of 400 million euros.

As far as the production of electric cars is concerned, Seat had announced in March that it would build 500,000 electric cars in Spain for several Volkswagen Group brands from 2025. In addition, the Spanish state reportedly wants to build a battery cell factory for electric cars as part of a public-private consortium with Seat and the energy company Iberdrola. This could become one of the six European gigafactories with which the VW Group wants to cover its battery requirements by 2030. It is possible that this production facility will be built at the Nissan factory in Barcelona – but there are also other interested parties.

reuters.com, lamoncloa.gob.es (in Spanish)