The Future is Electric. Germany and France Invest in European Battery Production

Blackstone Resources AG is pleased to announce that it has formally submitted a detailed business plan to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) to join its battery production subsidy programme.

Germany and France have both respectively set up their own 1 billion and 700 million-euro subsidy programmes to facilitate battery production in Europe. This demonstrates that these countries fully support expanding the capacity for battery production in Europe with the aim of making Europe a global leader. Since the European car industry is now strongly committed to rolling out their own lines of fully electric vehicles, this represents an important strategic move.

Blackstone along with a number of prominent battery technology firms where invited to summarise their plans and submit their applications for financing to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi). Blackstone’s 100% owned subsidiary based in Erfurt has applied for this particular programme, where one billion euros has been pledged to support Germany’s ambitions to become the world leader in battery technology and production.

Blackstone has ambitious goals for the German market. It plans to take full advantage of Germany’s manufacturing prowess and strong innovative culture. Germany’s motivated workforce and additional support from governmental departments and the EU was the decisive factor for Blackstone’s participation.

Blackstone will cooperate with additional German partners, which will provide an important platform for further research. This will allow Blackstone to establish a substantial battery-production project in Germany. The aim is to use these new technologies to manufacture the next generation of electric-vehicle batteries, close to where German auto manufacturers are based.

EUR 200 million will be invested into this new project, initially from Blackstone's own funds with the aim to garner further support from Germany’s subsidy programme and similar programmes being launched elsewhere in Europe, such as France.

Blackstone’s management team has laid out a number of significant goals and milestone that it wishes to achieve in the German market.

The first is to create battery manufacturing facilities in close proximity to major German auto makers. Its aim it to offer an initial capacity of 100 million battery cells per annum or approximately 1 gigawatt per annum (which is the equivalent of 25,000 to 100,000 electric-vehicle batteries) at lower costs than what is presently produced by China. Once successfully achieved, plans will be drawn up to increase production substantially.

The second is to create an incubator fund and accelerator fund for numerous start-ups and academic research projects across Europe. In addition, Blackstone will cooperate with prominent universities from various cities. Blackstone has already conducted detailed due diligence on a number of highly promising projects and has started the evaluation process.