The electric charging solutions design and manufacturing company Wallbox has launched a new factory in the Zona Franca of Barcelona, in which it has invested nine million euros and which becomes its third production center. It has the capacity to produce one million chargers by 2025 and will employ 500 people.
This production point joins those the firm already has in Sant Andreu de la Barca and in China and anticipates the first plant it wants to open, in 2025, in the United States in Arlington (Texas), whose project requires an investment of about 10 million euros and will create 250 jobs to manufacture half a million chargers.
Meanwhile, in the Zona Franca center, there are four production lines: two dedicated to manufacturing Pulsar+, Copper, Commander2, and Quasar model chargers for Europe and another that produces Pulsar and UL for the US market. The fourth line is exclusively for manufacturing Supernova, Wallbox's first public charger. For now, with the plant operational for a few months, there are 203 people on staff and almost 1,200 chargers are produced daily.
One of the main clients of this factory will be the electric group Iberdrola, which has announced an agreement to buy 10,000 Wallbox chargers, a company it has helped grow and supported since 2015. "Today I am pleased to announce that we are also going to become the first client of the new ultra-fast Hypernova charger, within the general agreement to acquire a total of 10,000 units, a quantity similar to the total number of public charging points currently in Spain," said Iberdrola's chairman, Ignacio Galán, during the inauguration.
Wallbox works with a clear objective: "to be the best in electric vehicle charging solutions and energy management worldwide," stated Enric Asunción, CEO and co-founder of Wallbox. Asunción emphasized about the company, created in 2015, that "we are no longer a startup; now we are a global company with a presence in almost 100 markets and that is listed on the NYSE."
"Most companies are focusing on putting energy into a car and that's it, but that's not what we do, we don't just make chargers, we are perfectly positioned between the electric car and the home," Asunción added. The firm, which in just five years has become a unicorn ---a company valued at more than 1 billion dollars---, manufactures chargers for direct sale to electric vehicle drivers as well as for public charging, but also products for managing home energy and elements such as the essential software for its operation.
The company's CEO insisted on the brand's innovation effort, which in 2021 invested 12 million in R&D and a team of 300 engineers. For the development of technological advances, Wallbox has two laboratories where it develops both its products and the validation tools for all produced chargers, one at its headquarters in Barcelona and another in California (United States).
The Zona Franca factory has been designed as a center to promote sustainability so that, starting in the third quarter of 2022, 4,500 square meters of solar panels are planned to be installed on the roof that will supply 900kW of renewable power to the factory, which represents between 30% and 60% of the estimated energy needs of the production process. This installation is estimated to result in savings equivalent to the consumption of more than 400 homes (calculation made according to the average electricity consumption in a Spanish home).
Wallbox works with a clear objective: "To be the best in electric vehicle charging solutions and energy management worldwide""At times we will produce much more than the factory consumes," Asunción highlighted. To compensate for this, the building will have a gigantic battery that will charge during the day.
In 2022, solar panels are expected to connect to the Sirius system, the energy management software developed by Wallbox. Sirius not only integrates solar panels but also Quasar bidirectional chargers ---about thirty of which will be installed in the parking lot of the new factory--- which allow both charging electric vehicles and discharging batteries to supply electrical energy to the building. This is a solution designed by the brand that it plans to market for use in homes where electric vehicles are used. In this regard, Asunción recalled that when you have an electric car, domestic electricity consumption practically doubles.
The promoters of Wallbox have organized the official inauguration of the new production center with the attendance of the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès; the Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto; the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau and the First Deputy Mayor of the Barcelona City Council, Jaume Collboni, among other personalities. Aragonès stressed that Wallbox "generates industrial production capacity in the country and fits with the reindustrialization that Catalonia is leading, which is green and digital," and set it as an example for all companies in Catalonia "to think big, with ambition and to generate prosperity that reaches all families and homes in the country."
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