LONDON (Reuters) - With electric car sales soaring and regulations increasingly favoring zero-emission vehicles, a flurry of announcements on Monday showed how the global auto industry has kicked into a higher gear as it races to speed past the fossil-fuel car era.
As part of its own 30 billion euro ($34.7 billion) electrification plan Stellantis - born out of a merger of PSA and Fiat Chrysler earlier this year - said it had entered a preliminary agreement with battery maker LG Energy Solution to produce battery cells and modules for North America, where the world’s No. 4 automaker expects more than 40% of its U.S. sales will be electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030.
That follows a recent announcement that Daimler AG will take a 33% stake in battery cell manufacturer Automotive Cells Company (ACC), founded in 2020 by Stellantis and TotalEnergies in 2020.
Carmakers are racing to secure battery supplies as they switch to electric, with dozens of new battery plants planned across Europe and America.
Ford Motor Co’s plans to go electric in Europe received a boost on Monday as the company said it would invest up to 230 million pounds ($316 million) to retool an engine factory in northern England to produce electric car power units instead of combustion-engine transmissions.
The No. 2 U.S. carmaker has said its car lineup in Europe will be all-electric by 2030.
Companies like Mercedes-Benz Daimler maker have warned that shifting to electric will cost jobs at combustion-engine plants, so Ford’s announcement is a boost for workers making fossil-fuel engines at its Halewood plant near Liverpool.
The shift to electric has also been accompanied by changes in the automotive landscape, with a large number of startups hoping to become the next Tesla Inc.
That has attracted the attention of Taiwan’s Foxconn, which has ambitious plans to diversify away from its role of building consumer electronics for Apple Inc and other tech firms.