Volkswagen AG is stepping up efforts to unseat Tesla Inc. as the dominant electric-car maker with a plan to build six battery factories in Europe and invest globally in charging stations.
VW already has agreements for two battery plants and is exploring four additional sites for a total capacity of 240 gigawatt-hours by the end of the decade, it said Monday. The push will cost some $29 billion and would make VW and its partners the world’s second-largest cell producer after China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., according to BloombergNEF.