Car manufacturer Seat to receive €397m funding for electric vehicle production

The Catalan car manufacturer, Seat, will receive almost half of the Spanish funding for electric vehicles (PERTE). The government will finance €397.3 million, 45% of the overall budget agreed between the executive, companies, and research centers, that will go toward developing electric vehicles in the country, as announced on Tuesday.

The company owned by Volkswagen, a German firm, had recently criticized the length of time being taken to announce the allocation of the funding. 

The carmaker is of the view that the more than €10 billion needed to promote the 'Future: Fast Forward' project to electrify its plants in Martorell, Navarra's Landaben, and build the proposed battery factory in Sagunt in Valencia should come from public funding. 

In fact, in recent days, Seat threatened to withdraw from building its battery factory if public funding was not allocated.

The plant that Seat wants to build in Valencia was one of the possible projects to replace Japanese firm Nissan after the car manufacturer closed its factory in Barcelona's Zona Franca industrial estate in December 2021.

Now, the successor of Nissan in Catalan plants has pushed several parties to be involved, despite the future of the plants not yet being decided. The main contenders to replace Nissan in Catalonia are a decarbonization hub (d-hub) led by QEV Technologies and BTech, as well as Silence, a leading electric motorbikes brand.

The d-hub will receive a major part of the PERTE funding, as it will get €107.8 million, 12.2% of the total being allocated. 

Mercedes-Benz is in line to get the second most funding as the Spanish government has allocated €170.4 million to build its EQV 300 van model.

On Friday, the Spanish government increased the total PERTE funding from €700 million to €877.2 million.