Volkswagen announced that it will invest more than 20 billion euro with its partners to produce battery cells, a move which will create 20,000 jobs, Reuters reports.

Volkswagen wants to become the world’s largest supplier of electric vehicles by the middle of this decade and in this regard has unveiled a strategy that envisages the construction of six battery cell factories for electric vehicles in Europe by the end of this decade. Together, Volkswagen’s six battery plants in Europe will be able to produce battery cells with a total capacity of 240 gigawatt hours per year by 2030. Also, two facilities to produce battery cells will be built in North America, according to Agerpres.

The PowerCo subsidiary will manage VW’s global battery production and research, from raw materials to recycling, and projects that include energy storage systems, VW announced at a ceremony marking the start of construction of its first battery cell plant in Europe, in the German city of Salzgitter. The PowerCo subsidiary is expected to generate annual sales of more than 20 billion euros by 2030.

“Today is a good day for the German car industry,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

At the ceremony, Volkswagen presented the standardized battery cell that it had announced in 2021 and which will be used for almost 80% of the German group’s models.

At the Salzgitter unit, batteries for half a million electric vehicles would be produced annually. VW’s other planned plants in Europe will have similar targets.