Reuters writes that the city of Heide in Northern Germany will be one of the sites of the new battery plants, which will be built by Northvolt and is expected to bring an annual production of one million cells. The project is also believed to be able to create 3.000 jobs directly in Heide and many more in the nearby area in the form of logistics and infrastructure.

Construction of the said Northern-Germany gigafactory is said to begin later this year and batteries could begin to be delivered after 2026. Northvolt officials stated that the company is also considering opening another plant someplace else, potentially in the US.

At the same time, Taiwan-based ProLogium announced that the company's first overseas battery facility will be built in France, in the city of Dunkirk, after the French government offered, among other things, competitive energy prices.

While for the moment, Europe's automotive industry still relies on Asian suppliers for raw material inflow, such as cobalt and lithium, the appearance of new gigafactories on the continent is an encouraging sight that the dependance could lower in the future.

Both France and Germany will offer subsidies for the two companies to build the upcoming battery plants, but the European Commission still needs to approve the financial support.

BASF and U.S. Microvast are two other companies that built or are building battery materials factories in Germany in an effort to support the country's car making industry in its EV expansion race.