At a new factory in Termoli, Italy, the world's fourth-largest car group, Stellantis, was supposed to exclusively build batteries for electric cars. But the demand is not there.
A battery collaboration between Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz and TotalEnergies called ACC was supposed to build batteries for electric cars at three factories around Europe.
Now, at least in one of the locations, it will not come to fruition. According to Stellantis management, the demand for electric cars cannot support battery production in Italy.
This is reported by Automotive News .
The same media outlet writes that the French factory has already opened, but that both the German and Italian factories were put on hold last fall due to lack of demand.
And now Stellantis believes that the factory in Italy cannot handle the battery packs. However, the area is not being completely abandoned.
On Monday this week, Stellantis announced that the factory will instead make gearboxes for hybrid cars. This is because the group wants to focus more on this type of car.
The gearbox production will employ 300 people who – when they are busiest – produce 300,000 gearboxes per year.
This is not the first time that the Termoli factory has been hit by problems. In September last year, the Italian government withdrew promised financial support for the project.
At the time, the government's financiers explained that there were other, better and more urgent things to spend the money on.
The Italian government had otherwise offered Stellantis and Mercedes the equivalent of one and a half billion kroner in support if the giants wanted to build a battery factory in Italy.
The ACC collaboration is not the only one in the automotive industry that is either faltering or collapsing completely.
Last week, Honda and Nissan announced that they will not form a joint group after all. Something that could have made the Japanese the third largest company in the automotive industry.
Nissan, which is struggling to survive and whose management has already said that it will run out of money within a year, is not completely lost, however.
Foxconn, which manufactures all of Apple's iPhones, has said it is interested in expanding its automotive division.
This is where Nissan could be the next step. Read more about the story here .
