Seat will invest 300 million in Martorell to build a battery factory

Important project from the Volkswagen Group to secure the future of the Martorell plant (Barcelona). Seat announced this Monday an investment of 300 million euros destined for the construction of a plant for the assembly of battery cells for electric cars, a project that represents a significant boost to the factory's electrification plan and will lead to the creation of 500 direct and indirect jobs.

The new facilities will occupy an area of 64,000 square meters, the equivalent of nine football fields, and will be connected to Workshop 10 of the Seat factory, which will allow for optminizar logistical operations and minimize transport costs. According to the automotive group, this area of the factory is where electric vehicles, such as the new Cupra Raval, will be produced.

"Today is a very important day because we are taking another step in our electrification plan," highlighted the president of Seat, Wayne Griffiths. According to the executive, to execute this investment, Seat has applied to the second call for subsidies from the Perte for Electric and Connected Vehicles (PERTE VEC), which he considers key for "Spain to become an electric mobility hub in Europe."

"We are going to invest an additional 300 million euros to build these facilities, where the cells that PowerCo will manufacture in the Sagunto gigafactory will also be assembled," added Griffiths, who assures that the plant will lead to the creation of 400 direct jobs and another hundred indirect ones. For the Sagunto factory, the Volkswagen group received 360 million euros in aid in the first edition of the Perte VEC. This second call has a budget of 850 million for the battery line.

According to Seat, construction work will begin in the coming weeks and is expected to finish in 2025. "These facilities are fundamental for our company and also represent a boost to obtain a second platform in Martorell," highlighted Griffiths in reference to being able to manufacture larger electric car models or families later than the Cupra Raval model, whose production will start in 2025. With this platform (called Small BEV), an urban electric model from Volkswagen is also planned to be produced.

As is usual in his public interventions, Wayne Griffiths has called for greater involvement from the Administrations to accelerate electric car sales in Spain, although he has acknowledged that the Government's decision to allow the purchase of this type of vehicle to deduct 15% from the IRPF is very good news. "Public-private collaboration is essential to accelerate the transformation, and in Spain some steps have already been taken in the right direction," he pointed out, after claiming the need to "create a legal framework that ensures sector investments and boosts competitiveness". "Spanish and European institutions also have to be convinced and get on board," he stated, after also calling for more investments to expand the charging post network.

"We are investing 10,000 million euros, the largest industrial investment in the history of Spain, to electrify the automobile industry, create thousands of jobs and maintain the country's competitiveness. I want to thank all the people who are working to make this possible: public administrations, unions and our employees and partners, because, together, we are putting Spain on electric wheels," concluded the president of Seat in a video statement.

Aragonés: "Catalunya is once again an industrial powerhouse"

The Govern of the Generalitat has described as "excellent news" the decision of Seat to build this battery assembly plant, as it "guarantees the future of the company," as emphasized by the conseller of Business, Roger Torrent, who defined Seat as "a strategic partner" of the Catalan executive.

According to the conseller, "this is extremely important news, in terms of the future and in terms of the transition to electric mobility." "Catalunya accumulates – he said – most of the elements of the electric vehicle value chain: assembly; research and development and the electric platform in Martorell."

In the same vein, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, welcomed the announcement by Seat and assured that "Catalunya is once again an industrial powerhouse and we are doing so by generating quality jobs." "The reindustrialization of Catalunya is not a matter of the future, but of the present", highlighted Aragonés, reports ACN.

Currently, in Martorell, the Seat Arona and Seat Ibiza models are manufactured (on the so-called line 1), the Seat León, the Cupra Formentor and the Cupra Leon (line 2) and the Audi A1 (line 3). The rest of the models that Seat and Cupra have for sale are produced in Volkswagen group factories located in Germany and the Czech Republic.