The Battery Convention held yesterday in Valencia by Eurobat, the Association of European Manufacturers of Automotive and Industrial Batteries, puts on the table the growing interest of foreign companies in the Valencian Community.
An interest sponsored by the steps already taken by Seat-Volkswagen through the next PowerCo gigafactory, but also by Ford throughout its past and future trajectory, which would place the Valencian Community in a preferential position in this new sector. “They want to see what is being done here and know what is going to be done, how it is already being done and how it could be done,” says Pau Sanchis, from Valencia, responsible for European affairs at Eurobat and who yesterday participated in various presentations at the convention.
The manager assures that the battery companies interested in the Valencian Community are looking for “a combination of elements: political ease at the legislative level, the opportunity to be at the exact moment and the business environment that can be created,” explains Sanchis.
The boost, without a doubt, has been given by the location of PowerCo, the same motivation that has led Eurobat to hold its convention in Valencia. “Holding this convention in Valencia is because being chosen to host the PowerCo factory makes it very attractive, but we could also say that since the Ford factory was installed here in 1976 there has been a journey of years in which the Valencian Community has been very smart in recent years to attract talent”, argues Sanchis.
Some of the interested operators, without revealing who, were walking yesterday through the Feria Valencia pavilion, which has hosted the electromobility sector for three days and which was visited yesterday, for the second time, by the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig.
Puig also confirmed that the Valencian Government is talking to many operators with an interest in investing in the Valencian Community and that it will continue on this path that “has given us such good results to position itself in this pole of sustainability in southern Europe”, he defended. . Likewise, he told the manufacturers that “here they have a space to develop this pilot regulation space because innovation cannot be stopped for lack of adequate regulations.”
An idea that the MEP Inmaculada Rodríguez-Piñero also defended in congress, stating that “many things are happening in the Valencian Community and quickly, we have a pioneering industry that needs a large amount of supplies.
“They are in the right place and at the right time.” Rodríguez-Piñero defended that the European Union reach a leadership position in the production of batteries, always avoiding “repeating the same mistakes of the past. We cannot depend on minerals and rare earths from China,” he said. “Europe is not self-sufficient and we are not going to be, but we can make our transformation a leader in the commitment to batteries and electric vehicles.”
Minutes later, at the table on European regulation, Ziyu Liu, from CATL, the world leader in battery manufacturing, said that “Europe has a very ambitious plan in terms of neutrality and industrial transition”, which makes it an “environment perfect for maintaining a sustainable business”. But apart from Europe’s zero-emissions plan, regulation is one of the issues that concern the industry, as the sector showed yesterday during the day.
In this sense, Eurobat asked to work with a long-term vision in the development of the European battery regulations, “beyond political cycles”, to achieve the 2050 objective. To which, in another of the meetings, César Santos , from the European Commission, noted that “we are going to need a bit of time to complete the regulatory framework.”
