Volkswagen will manufacture electric car (EV) batteries and set up charging stations in Germany, Reuters reported.
Volkswagen would invest 870 million euros or $985 million by 2020 to developing e-vehicle components. Volkswagen’s batteries business would manufacture battery cells and packs as well as overseeing recycling of old cells.
It would start producing mobile electric car charging stations at its nearby plant in Hannover, which currently makes engines and castings.
Volkswagen will bundle cells from electric car batteries into storage powerbanks that can be used to recharge up to 15 electric cars at a time and be transported to locations where power is needed. Volkswagen said EV customers can find the mobile charging stations using an app on their smartphone.
Customers can exchange a depleted charging point for a new one, or permanently attach the station to the power supply to recharge itself.
The battery charging station would allow Volkswagen to store solar and wind energy, and could recharge itself during off-peak hours.
The first mobile charging stations will be set up this year in VW’s hometown of Wolfsburg and rolled out to other cities in 2020.