Government advisor and VW official endorse European battery cell production

Henning Kagermann, head of government advisory council the German National Platform for Electric Mobility, has said he supports battery cell production in Europe to “avoid possible dependencies or delivery bottlenecks," the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. Kagermann says most problems currently ailing e-mobility in Germany, namely car range, costs and charging duration, “will be solved in five years’ time,” adding that an adequate charging infrastructure is key to the technology’s rapid spread. Bernd Osterloh, head of Volkswagen’s works council, has not ruled out the carmaker producing its own battery cells for electric cars. "Contrary to the position of Volkswagen’s executive board, as a works council we do not support a strategy that aims to buy cells exclusively from suppliers over the long term,” Osterloh said.

Read the article in German here.

See the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers for more information.