€100 mn-investment in Electric Car Battery Production Heading to Slovakia

Bratislava, July 26 (TASR) – Slovak company InoBat has signed a contract with US firm WildCat Discovery Technologies on cooperation in developing and producing batteries for the automotive industry, InoBat’s co-founder and executive director Marian Bocek and WildCat Discovery Technologies President Mark Gresser told a news conference in Bratislava on Friday with European Commission Vice-president Maros Sefcovic and European Investment Bank Vice-president Vazil Hudak in attendance.

Investment in development and constructing the production line should cost €100 million. Construction of a battery-production plant in Slovakia should start in the second quarter of 2020, with battery production launched by the end of 2021. Around 1,500 batteries will be manufactured annually at first, but the plan is to boost this 150,000 batteries eventually.
“The patented technology will serve carmakers from Central and Eastern Europe, and I believe it has the potential to kickstart an electric car battery revolution across Europe,” stated Bocek, adding that the plant might be situated in western Slovakia. Details of this will be announced in a couple of weeks.

“We’re pleased that Wildcat’s breakthrough research technology has found a place in Central and Eastern Europe thanks to this strategic cooperation. In cooperation with InoBat and in fact with the entire region, we’ll be able to maintain top place in new battery development … We’ll guarantee technological relevance, not to mention the creation of new jobs over the next few decades,” stated Gresser.

According to the two officials, the joint project is a reaction to a call by the European Commission, which set the goal of achieving technological independence and improving lagging car battery production in Europe.

“The EU should become the second largest single market for electric car batteries and utility energy storage,” stated Sefcovic, EC Vice-president in charge of Energy Union and a founder of the European Battery Alliance.

The estimated financial costs of constructing the production line will be partly covered by InoBat’s shareholders and strategic partners and partly by loans.

“The European Investment Bank has been developing close cooperation with the European Commission in supporting the development of the EU’s battery industry. It’s important to bring the best global technologies to Europe and improve them in line with EU standards,” added Hudak.

InoBat is a battery research and production company with a long-term goal of serving the European market for new energy solutions. InoBat is supported by investment group called IPM Group and regional industrial energy players A.EN. Group and MSM Group.