It was exactly one year ago that Varta received funding of more than 300 million euros - for projects relating to battery cells, in research and development and in “first industrial applications”.
A new battery cell factory has now been built in Nördlingen, visible from afar.
The location near the Varta headquarters in Ellwangen is already in Bavaria, which is why the 100 million euros for this factory come partly from the Bavarian budget and thus the Bavarian Minister of Economic Affairs Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) came to the inauguration on Monday.
"It is in our strategic interest that we regain market share in this key technology," said Aiwanger, explaining the public subsidy policy.
Susanne Preuss
Business correspondent in Stuttgart.
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"If you want to be at the forefront, you always have to present new and better batteries," said Varta CEO Herbert Schein. It takes the political will and the vision to keep innovation and technology in Europe, he praised. Varta satisfies people's interest in more flexibility with innovations for mobile, reliable energy. In Nördlingen, Varta mainly produces the small lithium-ion cells, known as coin power, which are primarily built into premium-class wireless headphones that enable voice control via Bluetooth and noise suppression at the same time.
According to Varta, the factory will create 600 jobs. Production is to become CO2-neutral within the next two years, for example by using waste heat from the machines for the drying rooms and air conditioning. The new building, which adjoins the existing building, creates a production area of 15,000 square meters on two floors, so that there is now a total of 60,000 square meters of production space at the Nördlingen location. This creates the infrastructure for further growth, according to a statement from Varta. New customer orders are already in production in this factory.
Generally speaking, details of such orders are not discussed without the consent of the respective customer.
It also happens that there was some confusion last week about an order from the automotive sector.
On Monday, when Porsche announced the construction of a small factory for special battery cells in the high-performance range, the price of the Varta share initially plummeted - because Porsche presented another partner for this project.
In the meantime, however, Varta has confirmed that there is an order from the sports car manufacturer Porsche, albeit apparently of a different kind. However, nothing should be said about details.
The Varta battery in question with the brand name V4Drive is intended to open up new fields of application for Varta, especially in the field of electromobility.