Spain has awarded Eur190 million ($203 million) to 15 electric vehicle battery projects, including Eur66 million to four projects belonging to Stellantis, the industry ministry said.
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Register NowThe main recipients will be Stellantis's gigafactory at Zaragoza, which was awarded Eur56 million and Lotte, with Eur49 million.
The government said it has maintained a dialogue with Stellantis regarding additional funding streams to ensure the project can go ahead.
Stellantis operates a vehicle assembly plant at the site which already received funding to start producing electric vehicles from 2025.
The amount awarded to the Netherlands-based automaker for the battery plant is lower than the Eur200 million granted to China's Envision for its Extremadura-based battery plant and Eur195 million awarded across two funding programs to Volkswagen for its Valencia-based factory.
Nonetheless, Stellantis reassured the ministry of its plan to make the project economically viable through a strict collaboration at national and regional level, the ministry said.
With the second funding round, the ministry said it had allocated 95% of the EU funds, or Eur529 million.
A third round of funding will be made available in 2024 with Eur1.2 billion available, it noted.
Spain is targeting 5.5 million EVs by 2030, or around one sixth of its vehicle fleet, as it looks to reduce vehicle emissions by 32 million mt of CO2 in the transport sector, or around one quarter of its overall targeted CO2 reduction.
As Europe's second-largest car maker behind Germany, Spin is banking on the conversion of manufacturing plants and developing an integrated chain of production over the decade to reach that target.
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