Volkswagen ($XETRA:VOW3) is investing a billion euros ($1.1 billion) into producing battery cells in Germany, specifically Lower Saxony, and will also start looking into a multibrand battery plant elsewhere in Europe.
While the billion-dollar infusion is definitely newsworthy, the company's investment into battery technology is another spike on a longer trend, according to job openings on the company's website.
Volkswagen has been hiring battery ("batterie" in German) experts in Germany since we saw this trend in November 2018. These positions were both specifically under the Volkswagen and Audi brands, and include a range of positions from interns to research and development roles. The majority of these positions are in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), where Volkswagen has its headquarters.
Volkswagen already has a few electric vehicles — namely the e-Golf — and also owns Electrify America, a company that has several dozen charging stations in the states and is currently building a network of several hundreds.
As Volkswagen also prepares to slim down by spinning off or selling units of its massive group, the data (and a billion euros) shows that it plans to go all into electric vehicles for what it hopes will be a long future.
