SVOLT confirms cancellation of its Saarland plans

The Chinese battery manufacturer SVOLT will not be building two factories in Saarland after all. Instead, the company is discontinuing its operational business in Europe. SVOLT had already cancelled its plans for a factory in Brandenburg in May.

The Saarland Ministry of Economic Affairs announced on Friday afternoon that it had been informed by SVOLT that the company would be withdrawing from Europe on 31 January 2025. As a result, SVOLT will neither build its first cell factory in Europe in Überherrn, Saarland, nor the planned assembly of battery modules and packs in nearby Heusweiler. There had previously been rumours in the Chinese media that SVOLT would probably drop the facilities in Saarland.

A ministry spokesperson said that SVOLT’s announcement described the move as a “strategic decision,” citing the weak market for electric vehicles in Europe as one of the reasons. SVOLT had asked the ministry to hold talks soon to clarify everything else.

SVOLT’s plans in Europe have thus turned out to be a pipe dream. In May 2024, SVOLT had already cancelled its plans for a battery factory in Lauchhammer, Brandenburg, but was still sticking to its plans in Saarland at the time.

According to Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR), SVOLT is said to have abandoned the planned battery factory on the Linslerfeld near Überherrn months ago, citing the difficult situation on the European electric car market, among other things. According to information from SR, BMW has backed out as a customer. And now the plans for the second Saarland site in Heusweiler are also history.

According to the SR report, SVOLT Europe is said to have authorised a law firm to dismiss all employees at the end of September. Around half of the former 50 SVOLT employees are said to have already been dismissed. According to the SR report, the Saarbrücken Labour Court is currently dealing with three dismissal protection claims from those affected.

The decision by SVOLT is a further bitter setback for Saarland. Just a few days ago, it was announced that the semiconductor factory announced by Wolfspeed and ZF will not be realised for the time being. As there is still no successor solution in sight for the Ford plant in Saarlouis, hopes for a sustainable automotive and supplier industry in the federal state have vanished into thin air for the time being. In addition, Michelin in Homburg and Thyssenkrupp in Wadern-Lockweiler are on the brink of closure and there are massive job cuts at Bosch in Homburg.

yicai.com (in Chinese), cnevpost.com, saarbruecker-zeitung.de, manager-magazin.de, tagesschau.de (last three in German)