Booming Automotive Industry: New Battery Recycling Plant in Northern Hungary

MTI-Hungary Today 2023.08.30.

The Slovenian Andrada Group is building the world’s most modern battery recycling plant in Alsózsolca (northeastern Hungary), the largest ever Slovenian investment in Hungary, with a value of HUF 10 billion (EUR 26.2 million), Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced in Slovenia on Tuesday.

The minister pointed out that this investment will ensure the recycling of electric batteries and that the production of electric batteries will be carried out entirely without environmental pollution. He also mentioned that the Andrada Group is committed to four times stricter environmental standards than Hungarian ones.

Péter Szijjártó noted that it was important to reduce the burden on the environment and underlined that the technology had been developed in Slovenia, where the company had developed the world’s most advanced method for making electric battery production fully “circular,” thus ensuring maximum protection of the environment from waste.

It is good news that this Slovenian company has decided to make its first investment in Hungary based on a technology for recycling electric batteries, and ensuring environmental protection,”

he emphasized.

The company will be able to recycle 10,000 tons of batteries a year in Alsózsolca with this investment, worth HUF 10 billion (EUR 26.2 million). The government is supporting the project with HUF 4.7 billion (EUR 12.3 million), contributing to the creation of two hundred new jobs.

The minister also mentioned that the world’s automotive industry is undergoing a revolutionary transformation, and that this electric switchover is partly the result of political decisions and partly an environmental imperative. In this context, he warned that around 17-20% of global emissions come from road transport.

“If we cannot move the world’s car industry to electric, we will not be able to meet our environmental targets in the years to come,” he said. “Hungary is a world leader in the electric car transition,” he added.

Finally, he underlined that

Hungary will soon become the world’s second largest producer of electric batteries, mainly thanks to the large investments in the East.

Fact

This year, there is an increasing number of news about different battery factories coming to Hungary. The world’s ninth largest electric battery manufacturer, China’s Eve Power, is building its first European factory in Debrecen in eastern Hungary. It has also been announced that the Chinese manufacturer Sunwoda, is coming to Nyíregyháza (northeastern Hungary). In addition, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) is building a factory in Debrecen. Moreover, it was announced in June that Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD is investing HUF 10 billion (EUR 26.2 million) to set up a battery assembly plant in Fót (near Budapest). There have also been reports that Volkswagen may also consider Hungary as a possible location for a manufacturing plant.

The production value of the Hungarian automotive industry has increased three and a half times in ten years, exceeding HUF 12,000 billion (EUR 32.3 billion) last year, an annual growth rate of 31 percent. The sector’s competitiveness is also demonstrated by its 90 percent export share and by the fact that last year Hungary exported automotive products to 173 countries around the world.

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Via MTI, Featured image via Facebook/Audi Hungaria Győr