Mercedes-Benz said on Thursday it had made a "fundamental
decision" to allocate capital to mining and had set up a raw
material office in Canada, where it signed a raw materials
agreement last year.
Investing in technologies requiring less raw critical
minerals, including hydrogen-powered cars, was another way to
bring down costs, Peter said.
The carmaker has a battery cell recycling facility via its
joint venture in China, but does also not see the need to
develop large cell recycling facilities of its own, Peter said.
Instead, it would prove demand for recycled raw materials
via the sales growth of its electric cars, and work with
partners to recycle at scale, he said.
"With our business development, we are creating the
motivation to invest - but we do not need to develop big
recycling facilities for battery cells ourselves," Peter said.
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
By Victoria Waldersee and Christina Amann
BERLIN, March 31 (Reuters) - BMW is betting on
efficient design and recycling to bring down battery costs and
is steering clear of investing in mines, its finance chief said
on Friday, setting it apart from some competitors digging deep
into the supply chain.
"We don't think it is right to invest in mines. We view it
as more important to get back raw materials from cars and other
products," finance chief Nicolas Peter said in an interview.
BMW has its own battery cell research centre in Germany, but
has left large-scale development to partners, placing
multi-billion-euro orders with CATL and EVE Energy to produce battery cells in China and Europe.
Bringing down battery costs, most of which come from raw
materials, is the key challenge for carmakers attempting to
generate profits from EVs equivalent to those reaped from
combustion engine cars, a target BMW hopes to reach with its
"Neue Klasse" EV-only line launching mid-decade.
Some, like Volkswagen, are betting big on expanding their
own battery production and investing in mines to secure control
down the supply chain.
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