The Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, announced this Thursday the creation of a public-private consortium to develop the first battery factory in Spain, hand in hand with Seat-Volkswagen and Iberdrola. This consortium will be part of the first strategic program for economic recovery and transformation (PERTE) that the State will articulate to manage European funds.
"The Government will create a public-private consortium with Seat, Volkswagen and Iberdrola, open to other partners, to set up the first battery factory in Spain. This will allow manufacturers like Seat, which as you know has announced a transformation process of the Martorell plant towards electric vehicles, to have a battery plant nearby that allows them to develop a new mobility model," Maroto said in her speech at the 28th Federal Congress of UGT-FICA. Among the attendees was the president of the Seat works council, Matías Carnero, who addressed Maroto after her speech to clarify what she meant by "near" Martorell, as he explained in statements to The New Barcelona Post.
According to Carnero, Maroto clarified that "near" means it will be in Spain. Sources from the Ministry of Industry confirm that they are working for the new battery factory to be in Spain and that the exact location has not yet been decided.
The president of the Seat works council defended that the construction of a battery factory in Spain, no matter which community it was in, would already be good news, considering that it would be closer than those that the Volkswagen group had foreseen until now for Europe, located in Germany, Poland or Hungary. Likewise, Carnero stressed the importance of concretizing the production of electric vehicles in Martorell and maintaining the Seat brand to prevent the automotive industry from falling behind in the model change.
The day before Sánchez's visit to Seat
Maroto has announced the launch of this project the day before the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and King Felipe VI visit the Seat plant in Martorell on the occasion of its 70th anniversary. The appointment is not by chance. A week ago, the president of the automotive company, Wayne Griffiths, indicated that they were holding "quite advanced discussions" with the Government to ensure that the Martorell plant manufactures an electric car starting in 2025, and assured that specific details on this matter would be announced in the coming weeks.
The Seat executive, who plans to invest 5 billion in new vehicles until 2025, also took the opportunity to emphasize that they cannot drive the transformation of the sector alone and asked Sánchez's executive for a clear commitment to electrifying the industry, promoting the sale of electric and hybrid vehicles and enabling the necessary charging infrastructure. In addition, the automotive executive demanded the need to have a battery plant "close" to Martorell, in line with the words spoken by Maroto this Thursday.