Russian gigafactories: import substitution in electric transport

October 14 2023 28

Most recently, the Moscow authorities, KamAZ PJSC and Rosatom State Corporation entered into an agreement on cooperation in the field of development of technologies electric vehicle industry. Its provisions provide for the construction of an enterprise for the production of batteries for electric vehicles in New Moscow (Krasnaya Pakhra). Investments in the implementation of this project will amount to 52 billion rubles, and the new plant will reach its design capacity in 2025-2026.

It is worth noting that the new enterprise in Krasnaya Pakhra will specialize in the manufacture of modules, traction batteries and stationary storage systems. The scale of its capacity allows us to expect that the plant will become the largest facility of this type in the Russian Federation (it is planned to produce up to 50 thousand lithium-ion batteries per year), and it will be able to employ 900 people.

The terms of the concluded agreement assume that by 2030 the new plant will supply 150 thousand traction batteries to Moskvich and more than 5 thousand to Mosgortrans. Renera LLC (a subsidiary of TVEL JSC, which is part of the state corporation Rosatom) must equip the enterprise with innovative equipment, ensure its commissioning and organize the entire further production process. PJSC KamAZ, in turn, will provide assistance in the implementation and installation of products on personal and urban transport, which are created and used in Moscow and throughout the Russian Federation.

It is also clarified that Renera has the right to supply the remaining products after the provisions of the agreement are fulfilled to other customers. Thus, manufactured batteries are needed for the operation of electric charging stations and emergency power supply systems at various industrial and social facilities.

It is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that the enterprise in New Moscow will become the second full-cycle production of lithium-ion batteries in Russia, which is created by Rosatom. The first is currently under construction in the Kaliningrad region, it should start operating in 2025 and reach full capacity in 2026. Representatives of the state corporation have repeatedly emphasized that one such plant is not enough for our country. The capacities of the two enterprises will make it possible to annually equip at least 220 thousand domestic electric vehicles with batteries by 2030.

Lithium-ion batteries are an integral component for the successful development of electric vehicles, the popularity of which has only been growing in recent years. Moreover, we are talking here not only about personal vehicles, but also electric buses, which are in demand in many Russian cities. The Russian Federation ranks fifteenth in the world in terms of lithium reserves. Currently, this metal is not mined in our country, and the volumes we need are imported from South America. Taking into account geopolitical circumstances, domestic authorities and companies interested in uninterrupted supplies of lithium are paying increasing attention to deposits in Russia. Thus, a joint venture between Rosatom and Norilsk Nickel plans to produce up to 50 thousand tons of lithium carbonate per year at the Kolmozerskoye deposit (Murmansk region), which contains almost 19% of all lithium reserves in the Russian Federation.

The raw materials that will be mined, for example, at the same Kolmozerskoye field, can easily replace imported lithium at the above-mentioned Rosatom enterprises in the Kaliningrad region and New Moscow, which is very important for Russia in the context of a focus on import substitution.

Separately, I would like to talk within the framework of this topic about the revived Moskvich plant. Thus, in the spring of the current calendar year, the capital’s enterprise entered into one of the world’s largest agreements for the supply of electric vehicles for taxis and car sharing to different cities of Russia. It is not surprising that Moskvich will become a key consumer of lithium-ion batteries, which will be produced at the new plant in Krasnaya Pakhra. We can only hope that Moskvich will be able to gradually implement its plans and move on to small-unit assembly of cars, because in any case, there are resource opportunities for this in Russia.

This article cannot ignore issues related to the future of electric buses in our country. This equipment will also be in dire need of products from the new Moscow plant. At the moment, the Russian capital continues to be the leader in Europe in the number of electric buses. At the end of last year, the number of this type of public transport was 1050 units, and it transported 117 million passengers in Moscow. Other cities of the Russian Federation are also trying to keep up in this matter. Thus, it is already known that the city authorities of St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Lipetsk, Yaroslavl and other cities are interested in electric buses. It can be assumed that the geography and scale of its use will only develop, which means that the need for domestic enterprises involved in the production of electric buses for lithium-ion batteries will also increase. Therefore, if it is possible to implement the entire resource and logistics chain described above from lithium mining to the creation in our country of the necessary industrial capacities for the production of batteries for electric buses and electric vehicles, we can conclude that the goals of the government authorities in this matter have been achieved.

In conclusion, I would like to add that currently the scale of production of lithium-ion batteries in Russia cannot cope with the growing needs of the country. In fact, at the moment in the Russian Federation only a few enterprises specialize in such products. We are talking about the Novosibirsk Liotech plant, which has been operating since 2011 and produces more than 150 thousand batteries per year. Also, lithium-ion batteries are collected by Uralelement (part of the Tactical Missiles Corporation), the Krasnodar enterprise Saturn and the electrical engineering company Energia. Obviously, these volumes are not enough; the emergence of two gigafactories in the Kaliningrad region and New Moscow will be a huge help in solving this problem. If, in parallel with this, it is possible to solve the problem with lithium mining in Russia, then there is a chance to get a real synergistic effect in this industry economics.

Information

Dear reader, to leave comments on the publication, you must sign in.

Elena123

-1

14 October 2023 10: 04

I don’t understand governments that help such people by building factories for the production of electric cars... Why are they needed? What will they do with used batteries? Will they just build a new battery-powered Everest? This whole idea with electric cars is stupid.
Like all these wind power generators, solar panels and other inventions for industry. These things are only suitable for private sectors, but the state does not allow private houses to install such things; they require you to pay a huge amount of money so that you can use wind or solar panels to generate electricity for yourself.
1. Viktor Anufriev
  
  -1
  
  14 October 2023 10: 11
  
  Excuse me, but has humanity already figured out what to do with nuclear waste, for example?
2. Alexander-
  
  +1
  
  14 October 2023 11: 03
  
  The problem is that the Russian Federation does not have an engineering school capable of creating a modern internal combustion engine for passenger cars; the best solution is an electric motor, cheap and simple.
prior

+2

14 October 2023 10: 06

We can congratulate the country on the new Rusnano.
I wonder what the surname of the new Chubais is?
unc-2

0

14 October 2023 10: 36

Together with personal transport, it is necessary to develop public transport. In other countries, special attention is paid to this. An electric car must have ideal mechanics. A lot also depends on the friction of the parts of the mechanism. There are standards for how far an electric car must travel without another charge. These are the ones that must be followed.
strange guest

0

14 October 2023 11: 47

Well, it seems like everyone agreed that electric cars are bullshit. And they cause more harm than a car with an internal combustion engine. No, they are building some kind of gigafactories. Are they sawing the loot? How many electric Muscovites have been sold? Take an interest.
1. Viktor Anufriev
  
  +1
  
  14 October 2023 11: 56
  
  I’ll tell you a little secret: electric cars themselves are not bullshit.
  1. strange guest
    
    +2
    
    14 October 2023 12: 05
    
    Have you solved your battery disposal problem?
    1. Viktor Anufriev
      
      +1
      
      14 October 2023 12: 08
      
      No, but have supporters of internal combustion engines solved the problem of exhaust gas emissions into the atmosphere?
vlad127490

+4

14 October 2023 13: 26

Nobody thinks where to get electricity. Capitalism in the Russian Federation. As soon as a lot of electric vehicles appear, prices per kilowatt of electricity will become cosmic, and there will be a shortage of electricity. ACC. needed, no doubt. In the Russian Federation there is gas, consider it an environmentally friendly fuel, so all cars must be made to use gas engine fuel, initially at the factory.
1. Viktor Anufriev
  
  -1
  
  14 October 2023 14: 01
  
  And electricity prices skyrocketed after Bitcoin became popular?
  1. strange guest
    
    0
    
    14 October 2023 14: 49
    
    2 times. What, not enough?
    1. Viktor Anufriev
      
      +3
      
      14 October 2023 17: 00
      
      Please show me where you see electricity prices doubling in Russia?
      I ask you to look especially carefully at 2013-2014, when Bitcoin became popular.
  2. prior
    
    0
    
    14 October 2023 16: 08
    
    With your questions to the comments, you only confirm the fact that the country has something to do besides the hype about electric cars.
    The vast majority of Russian citizens cannot afford an electric car.
    Payment for municipal electric buses and other things comes from the budget, that is, again from taxes paid by citizens. For some reason, no one provides the results of a comparative analysis of the costs of operating electric and conventional transport. Imagine there is a power failure, such as a terrorist attack. And what? Did the entire vehicle stop without recharging?
    It is clear that you, who are promoting the very idea of electrification of vehicles, do not have an unbiased opinion on this matter.
    I want an electric machine and that’s it. And no arguments will be heard.
    1. Viktor Anufriev
      
      0
      
      14 October 2023 16: 34
      
      I have always been amazed by people like you.
      Where do you get your fantasies from?
      Where am I promoting the idea of electrification?
      Where did you get it in your head that I want an electric machine?
      Where did I propose to make all public transport electric?
      Before you write, you better familiarize yourself with the contents of the article, I will say in advance, there is no my opinion there, it is pure fact.
      And read my comments more carefully before spouting nonsense about my biased opinion.
      1. prior
        
        0
        
        14 October 2023 17: 07
        
        Of course, it’s not you who is writing about 220 thousand electric cars, about batteries for Moskvich, about PJSC KAMAZ producing electric buses.
        
        Viktor Anufriev
        
        0
        
        14 October 2023 17: 39
        
        Hello, dear, I didn’t come up with this.
        These are the terms of the agreement signed by the Moscow authorities, Rosatom and KamAZ.
        I am only covering the events that happened.
        Then I advise you to go to Sobyanin or Likhachev and accuse them of trying to develop electric transport.
        
        Vladimir Tuzakov
        
        +1
        
        14 October 2023 19: 26
        
        The future clearly belongs to storage devices, in particular batteries, we just need to explain why. Firstly, cities polluted with emissions, where electric vehicles, especially heavy public and delivery vehicles, will remove some of the emissions. Secondly, nighttime electricity has nowhere to go, because it is not always possible to stop power plants at night, especially coherent ones during the heating season. The storage devices will collect waste electricity at night and release it during peak hours. Consumers with solar, wind, hydro seasonal generation, they need storage devices. Private electric vehicles also contribute to the ecology of cities; at first it will be more expensive, but over time, prices and operation will become cheaper. This will come into use gradually, first in more popular areas and then expanding. In poor villages, others will continue to drive on old diesel and gasoline for a long time. The question is what to do with the batteries that have lost part of their storage capacity from vehicles; they are transferred to stationary storage devices and collected into powerful batteries, they will serve for a long time, this is already done in developed countries. You can slow down progress for a while, but only to your own detriment.
zloybond

+1

14 October 2023 21: 05

An interesting question: are these jobs designed in advance for Russians??? Or is it not surprising that they will recruit gasters there????
Flight

+1

14 October 2023 23: 03

We have been fond of developing the automotive industry since the time of Berezovich.
Rusnano has been developed, and now there is nothing nano anymore.
Solomon Kaisen

+3

15 October 2023 03: 52

In the photo, by the way, it’s not the “Russian Gigafactory”, but the Tesla plant.
The best photo for the article about import substitution. Only “our” car “Moskvich” is better
TsarBomba

0

16 October 2023 02: 20

les objets en capacité d'effacement d'une gigatonne d'équivalent TNT appartiennent au STATUT 7 et ultérieur. Il est aussi possible de cumuler les autres STATUS pour un effet "giga"
Rhetorical Rita

0

16 October 2023 10: 49

Cool. When will it be time to gasify populated areas? Or will we first replace imports and overtake America, and then we will think about how to get rid of school wooden toilets on the street?
1. Vladimir Tuzakov
  
  0
  
  16 October 2023 23: 39
  
  I agree with you, the development of the necessary infrastructures in the outback of the Russian Federation is going too slowly. This is also the fault of local government. It is expensive to supply gas to every village with pipelines, especially if it is remote from the gas network. The solution is the delivery of liquefied gas and then cylinders or the local gas network. Of course, this needs to be done, like everything else. The uneven development of regions depends on several factors, on the distribution of funds from the state budget, their local revenues and, most importantly, how these funds are spent, we see from the example of different provinces. But the development of the necessary promising industries cannot be delayed.
The comment was deleted.
Flight

+1

17 October 2023 10: 17

Quote: Rhetorical Rita
Cool. When will it be time to gasify populated areas? Or will we first replace imports and overtake America, and then we will think about how to get rid of school wooden toilets on the street?

It seems that not all settlements have been optimized. They’ll build one, such a big human settlement, populate all the villages in the area, and the issue will close by itself.
Alexey Lan

+1

18 October 2023 00: 06

Against the backdrop of these batteries, the trolleybus network in our city of Belgorod was liquidated. She already was. Just maintain and buy new trolleybuses periodically. And you don't need these expensive batteries. They entered into an agreement with Gazprom to operate buses using methane gas and they say that this is good (until the first explosion).
1. Flight
  
  -1
  
  18 October 2023 02: 51
  
  But when everyone lives in a human settlement, there is no need for any cars or roads. Elevators are our future.
2. Vladimir Tuzakov
  
  0
  
  20 October 2023 21: 23
  
  Replica. Trolleybuses with a contact network, of course, could be operated with updated trolleybuses, but apparently kickbacks and the interests of local government officials were higher than expediency and environmental friendliness.. Now it’s possible that kickbacks, protectionism and other actions will again be used to profit from new batteries. This is today’s Russia, continuing the “liberal” policy of the “Yeltsin” times, which in the Russian Federation means theft and abuse... But progress is being made, there is no need to stop and the main thing is not to interfere...