The Ministry of Industry and Tourism gave the green light a few days ago to the million-dollar aid that will allow the Chinese company Gotion High-Tech to build its first battery “gigafactory” outside of Asia in Valladolid. The resolution of the State Society for Industrial Promotion and Business Development (Sepides) confirmed a subsidy of 138 million euros for a project that mobilizes nearly 950 million and that aspires to turn the city into a reference center for the electric vehicle industry.
What has happened? The aid is part of the fifth PERTE of the Electric and Connected Vehicle (PERTE VEC V) and gives definitive shape to a preliminary concession that was advanced last May. The idea is that the money will be distributed between two different plants: one dedicated to the recycling of batteries and recovery of critical materials (known as “black mass”), which will receive 82.3 million euros, and another destined to the manufacture of cathodes, which will receive 55.9 million. So confirmed it the Minister of Industry himself, Jordi Hereu.
Components. The cathode is one of the parts that adds the most value to batteries. Around 60%, according to has explained the Ministry of Transport itself, and until now no factory in the European Union produced it. Setting up this plant in Valladolid means that Europe can stop depending exclusively on Asia for one of the most expensive and strategic components of the electric car (stop depending, halfway, since Gotion is still a Chinese manufacturer).
It was not about “making batteries, which are already done in many places”, but about “opening a new path”, counted the Minister of Transportation, Óscar Puente, during the presentation of the project.
How much money is at stake. The Ministry, through Sepides, estimates the budgets of the two plants at 411.5 and 539.1 million euros. The 138 million in public aid represent around 15% of the total investment in this first phase.
Who is behind the project. Gotion High-Tech is a Chinese giant that covers the entire battery industrial chain, from the extraction and transformation of raw materials to final recycling, and that already maintains commercial relations with Volkswagen and its own factories in Germany and Slovakia. The facility in Valladolid will receive raw materials from Morocco and, according to has explained The company will also serve as a platform to export to Latin America.
The project comes after the Slovak company Inobat, which at the time also obtained public aid to settle in Valladolid, gave up its plan without presenting the necessary guarantees.
Employment. According to the data provided by Gotion itself, the construction of the two plants will provide work about 2,500 peoplewhile the operation of the factories, once up and running, will employ around 1,000 workers directly.
Works. The project plans to begin building the first phase, the recycling plant, throughout 2027. The facilities will occupy some 700,000 hectares of industrial land, although Gotion’s own project is conditional on the construction of a macro solar plant that guarantees the energy self-sufficiency of the factories, which will require up to a thousand additional hectares of land.
To build the factory they will also be required to modify the General Urban Planning Plan of Valladolid, a procedure that, according to picks up El Economistais expected to receive provisional approval on July 27, although the final decision corresponds to the Junta de Castilla y León.
Administrations. The Valladolid City Council, governed by PP and Vox, has already signed a letter of intent to transfer the land that the company needs, with an initial surface of 70 hectares that can be expanded to 120 if the project grows, as shared by El Confidencial. The current mayor, Jesús Julio Carnero, assured maintain “permanent contact” with Chinese managers and has committed to facilitating the corresponding procedures.
Impulse. Óscar Puente, mayor of Valladolid between 2015 and 2023 and today Minister of Transport, has been the one who has pushed this operation the most since he traveled to Slovakia in 2023 to negotiate with Inobat the first attempt to install a battery factory in the city. Puente has claimed on several occasions the strategic position of Valladolid, with its own airport, high-speed connection one hour from Madrid, proximity to Portugal and a consolidated industrial hub next to Palencia and Burgos. The minister has qualified the operation as the largest industrial investment in the city since the arrival of the Renault factory in 1953.
And now what. Industry’s resolution clears up one of the main administrative obstacles, but there are still pending steps, including the presentation of guarantees, the definitive urban planning approval by the Government of Castilla y León and the start of works in 2027. In addition, Gotion proposes this first phase as the start of a much more ambitious plan, which could reach 5,000 million euros of total investment and adding up to eight plants in Valladolid, according to the company itself.
Cover image | Ministry of Transport and DAZE
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