The EU has announced €4bn (£3.4bn) of state aid investments in new factories producing electric batteries for cars, heat pumps and solar panels as it seeks to accelerate production and the uptake of green technologies and combat cheap Chinese imports.
The Swedish battery producer Northvolt will receive €902m in state aid to build a new factory in Heide in Germany, while a wide range of clean tech factories in France are to get a €2.5bn bump in state aid.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The EU has announced €4bn (£3.4bn) of state aid investments in new factories producing electric batteries for cars, heat pumps and solar panels as it seeks to accelerate production and the uptake of green technologies and combat cheap Chinese imports.
The investments form part of the EU’s mission to be climate neutral with net zero gas emissions by 2050 but are also designed to help insulate the bloc from the growing competition from Chinese car, solar panel and other green tech factories.
The Chinese conglomerate Build Your Dream (BYD), which launched lower-cost electric cars in the EU last summer, recently became the world’s number one producer of hybrid and battery-only vehicles.
The near €3bn in state aid earmarked for France will support the production of batteries, solar panels, wind turbines and heat pumps, along with key component and critical raw material supply chains, the EU said.
Last year the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced an investigation into potential Chinese state subsidies into the automotive industry, bringing with it the threat of a trade war.
But during a visit to Beijing at the end of the year she tried to persuade Chinese officials that the European market would not remain open if it was found to compete unfairly with local enterprise.
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