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Volkswagen's threats vibrate in Navarra's electric car
  • The multinational had announced the need for a new workshop on the manufacture of electric batteries in Valencia (Catalan Countries), but now it has questioned the project and have started dancing the mangoes, others in Navarra, where 4,600 people work in the factory in Pamplona.
Xabier Letona Biteri @xletona 2022ko urriaren 21a
Iruñeko Volkswagen lantegia. (Arg.: EITB)

These days it will be specified how much money the Spanish Government will have in its Electricity Car Channelling Plan (PERTE), and Volkswagen is seriously pushing for the maximum money from the Spanish Government.

The giant would be built in Sagunto (Valencia) and Volkswagen announced an investment of EUR 3 billion. Now, arguing that the government is not going to give you enough money, it questions the investment. According to the talks held, the company expects to receive between EUR 300 and 380 million from the public fund, which expects between EUR 700 and EUR 800 million. The Country reports that the main PERTE grants will be announced between Friday and Monday.

The President of the Government of Navarre, María Chivit, calls for peace of mind and concretely that we must first see how the subsidies are, but that she does not see the construction of an electric car in Navarre in danger. Last September Volkswagen announced the construction of two types of electric cars in Pamplona. In addition to Navarre, Volkswagen has another plant in Martorell (Catalan Countries) with 11,000 workers and is taking advantage of the nervousness generated by this news to threaten the government and get the most public money.

Limits of the electric car

Billions will be invested in the next few years in the field of electric cars in the state and in the world (between EUR 10 billion and EUR 11 billion in the state with this plan), but many say that it is not possible to do the number of cars that exist today and that the automotive sector will be very small. The geologist Antonio Aretxabala, for example, in an interview at ARGIA, said that in the future there will only be one car for every 500 inhabitants.

According to the famous researcher Antonio Turiel, today in the Spanish state there will be about 26 million cars and about 1.4 billion cars worldwide. Every year, 80 million cars are produced in the world, of which 600,000 are electric. If a million electric cars were to be produced in a short period of time and all of them transferred to the state, it would take 26 years to reach the current level. This, in his view, is absolutely impossible.

Turiel stresses that, in addition to the energy problem, there is also that of materials (lithium, cobalt, nedimio...): “Although lithium around the world is used for the production of electric cars, about eight million cars could be built each year. That is, the current 1.4 billion would take 175 years to replace them.”

These and many other problems surrounding the electric car, but the authorities and the strategic plans make little reference to the citizens, when they know that much less cars are going to be produced and that, therefore, many workers are left over in this sector, also in Pamplona.