Page 24 - bne_November 2023_20231105

24 I Companies & Markets bne November 2023
Volkswagen and
Umicore pick Poland
for site of €1.7bn EV
battery component
factory
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
Ionway, a joint venture between PowerCo, part of the Volkswagen group, and Belgian materials company Umicore, has selected the Polish town of Nysa to build a factory to make components for electric car batteries, Volkswagen said on October 7.
The Polish government is contributing €350mn in grants to the €1.7bn investment. “This is a landmark investment for the entire Opole region and an opportunity for further regional development,” Deputy Defence Minister Marcin Ociepa, who is running for the parliament from the region in the election this Sunday, said in a statement.
“The strategic location of the plant in Poland, right next to Umicore’s [existing] battery materials plant, will further enable the transition to electric driving that is truly sustainable,” said Umicore's CEO Mathias Miedreich.
Typically for a greenfield project of this type, Ionway picked its location due to the availability of a skilled workforce.
Ozone hole three times larger than Brazil opens up above Antarctica
bne IntelliNews
Ahole in the ozone layer three times larger than Brazil has opened up over Antarctica. Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite shows that the ozone hole is one of the largest on record, according to the European Space Agency (ESA), and measured 26mn square kilometres on September 16, 2023 – roughly three times the size of Brazil.
www.bne.eu
Volkswagen is making a belated push in the electric cars market.
The company also stressed the option to make the factory powered with renewable energy only.
Ionway’s factory is but the most recent in a series of related investments in Poland, which is a European powerhouse in the electric vehicle segment.
Mercedes-Benz is planning a €1bn factory making electric vans in Poland while Volvo is establishing a technology hub to “facilitate transition to all-electric production”, Notes from Poland reported.
South Korean battery parts producer SK Nexilis started construction of a €660mn factory in Stalowa Wola in 2022.
Poland’s plan to put as many as one million electric cars on the country’s roads by 2025 remains a pipe dream, however. Delays have also plagued the government’s plan for a Polish electric car brand, Izera.
An ozone hole the size of Brazil has opened up over the Antarctic.
Satellite data revealed that this year's ozone hole expanded to about twice the size of Antarctica. The eruption of Tonga's underwater volcano in early 2022 is a possible cause for the unusual size of the ozone hole, say scientists.
The ozone layer in Earth's atmosphere is approximately 15