Remember all those ‘gigafactories’ that were going to decarbonise our road transport and create many thousands of green jobs into the bargain? Now comes yet one more sign that all is not going according to plan. The Automotive Cells Company (ACC), a joint venture between carmakers Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz, and energy company Total Energies, has suspended work on two plants that it was constructing at Kaiserslauten in Germany and Termoli, Italy. It already operates one factory in France which was opened last year.
Ostensibly, the retrenchment is just temporary while the company investigates alternatives to the nickel-based batteries it was planning to manufacture there. Then again, it could be an admission that Europe is failing in its bid to construct a EV battery industry as China undercuts it on price.
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