We believe electromobility, combined with renewable energy, is a key part of reconciling the global desire for individual mobility against the need to significantly reduce global emissions. Together with the already announced investment for precursor of cathode active materials in Harjavalta, Finland, our new plant in Schwarzheide will deliver more sustainable, high-performance cathode active materials to our customers in Europe and contribute to build up a sustainable European battery value chain. Both plants will start-up in 2022 with an initial capacity enabling the supply of around 400,000 full electric vehicles per year.
BASF's investment in Europe will help customers keep the carbon footprint through the value chain as low as possible. Our cathode active materials will have an industry leading low CO₂ impact. Thanks to our efficient manufacturing process, the high share of renewable energy, the upstream integration into the key raw materials like Cobalt and Nickel, as well as the short transportation route along the value chain we are able to reduce the CO₂ footprint significantly – by around 30% compared to the conventional industry standard on the market.