VW to Build New EV Battery Factory in China

Volkswagen is building a battery factory in Hefei (Anhui province). VW Anhui Components Company is VW’s first battery factory to be wholly owned by the group in China. It will kick off with 150,000 to 180,000 batteries per year, for Volkswagen Anhui’s electric cars built on the Modular Electric Drive Toolkit (MEB platform).

The 45,000 sq m plant is right next to the existing Volkswagen Anhui factory, Volkswagen’s first majority-owned joint venture for all-electric vehicles. 

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Dr. Stephan Wöllenstein, CEO Volkswagen Group China, said, “Volkswagen Group’s platform strategy is a competitive advantage which we are transferring into the e-mobility era. With a significant increase of battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) in the future, we need to focus on keeping key components like battery systems in our own value chain, allowing us to leverage Group-wide synergies and innovations. Volkswagen Anhui and VW Anhui Components Company, alongside our two strong Joint Ventures, are crucial to our electrification strategy and to achieving our goal of the Volkswagen Group China fleet reaching over 40% NEVs by 2030.

Thomas Schmall, Volkswagen Group Board Member for Technology and CEO of Volkswagen Group Components, said: “The development and production of battery systems is a crucial step on the way to achieving end-to end responsibility for the battery. Thus, Anhui is an important pillar of our global battery strategy. The global strategy leads from vertical integration in the raw material market via building battery plants, as well as cell factories in collaboration with partners – amongst them the Chinese battery expert Gotion – to second life solutions and recycling. Currently, we are building up three MEB battery manufacturing facilities in Asia, Europe and the USA to be able to meet the growing demand for MEB battery systems in the future. Our blueprint factory in Braunschweig, Germany, is ready to produce up to 500.000 battery systems a year and is assisting in our capacity build-up with its expertise in planning, development and production.”

Workers are to be trained at the Component Education Academy located within Tianjin plant. Front-line employees get VR training means no physical parts are sacrificed, the training time is vastly reduced and there is no need for classrooms, jigs, and the other teaching tools. VW has said in the past that it is determined to educate and train the younger generations with a focus on e-mobility products.

Like most battery electric vehicles, MEB vehicles will have multiple cells, a management controller, a battery management system, and a connector strip. These are connected to each other with high-voltage connector in the aluminium battery housing. There are 2 manufacturing steps, each with two production lines. The first will create a frame and the other will  assemble the finished battery array. Assembly and testing uses cutting-edge technology with a high level of automation at each stage. Prototype production has already started at the Group’s Tianjin plant.