Varta has announced bundling the e-mobility and battery businesses into a separate company, confirming rumours from earlier this year. The new V4Drive SE will target the fast-growing market for large-format lithium-ion cells, says Varta.
The independent company bears the name of Varta’s new battery cell V4Drive, which Varta presented in April 2021, initially as a kind of booster for performance vehicles. Varta made it public in October 2021 that it would also build the V4Drive in a larger format than the previously confirmed 21700 (2.1 cm diameter, 7 cm height) for use in battery-electric cars. Series production of up to two GWh per year is scheduled to start in 2022/2023. Initial customer orders – Porsche is confirmed – have already been received for the V4Drive cell.
The new company also does not come out of the blue. The German company first mentioned a spin-off as Pertrix V SE (European public limited company) in March this year, then still claiming it was still a “shelf company with no operating business”.
Clearly, this has changed now. The press statement remains short yet charges the new unit with “the development and production of cells for a wide range of attractive and high-growth applications, in new structures on a global scale” – and it is a chief matter.
Herbert Schein will head the new business and resign as CEO of Varta AG. He is tasked with establishing new business structures worldwide. Schein will leave the Board of Directors of Varta at the end of the year. Markus Hackstein will become the executive board’s spokesman, consisting of three people in the future, with immediate effect.
Michael Tojner, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Varta AG, commented on appointing Schein that he “is an internationally renowned technology expert and has proven many times in his almost three decades at Varta that he can open up new business areas and develop them to the point of market leadership.” With many years of experience in top management, Schein was also “the ideal person for a company that will have a decisive impact on the future of lithium-ion technology in many areas,” so Tojner.
Keyword: Varta founds V4Drive SE to target global EV battery market