The future of Nissan’s plants in Catalonia will go through a choral alliance driven by electro-mobility and dubbed the ‘hub’ of decarbonisation. With Chinese manufacturer Great Wall Motors (GWM) off the board, the reindustrialization commission of Nissan has anointed the project led by QEV Technologies And during this month of January, the Administration, the unions and Nissan hope to specify the size that their project will acquire in the 517,000 square meters that the empty factories of the Japanese giant now occupy. The next key date to specify the names and figures will be Friday January 21st, when governments, centrals and Nissan meet again.
The figures that this alliance of six electromobility firms (which could end up being more) intends to put on the table are ambitious. According to their promoters in public statements, the investment would be around 1.8 billion euros and the jobs created (between direct and indirect) would be 10,000 before 2025. Much more ambitious numbers, especially in investment, than the 500 million that GWM claimed to have prepared for the Free Trade Zone and that generate suspicions among some of those involved in reindustrialization. “The project contemplates increasing the initial investment figures due to the great interest of national and international reference investors who are committed to being part of the project and is open to new possible alliances,” the hub announced in a recent statement.
The commission to decide the future after Nissan is now in the process of putting the pieces together to compose a puzzle that guarantees maximum employment and industrial capabilities. Of the 517,000 meters of available surface that the Japanese firm leaves, the great majority will be destined to purely industrial projects, while a small part will be reserved for logistics; according to knowledgeable sources. In the first bench, for now, there are several names confirmed in the ‘hub’ project: QEV Technologies, Btech, Ronn Motor, It’s over, Time, Tevva, Quantron Y Hispano Suiza. The specific dimension of this project will probably be defined on January 21. Sources familiar with the process express doubts about the financial muscle of the ‘hub’ and advocate dividing Nissan’s land among various projects, in order to diversify the risk. What would happen to incorporate projects halfway between industry and logistics, such as Mecalux.
Initially the choral project of the ‘hub’ was started and presented to the table by QEV Technologies and the two Swedish truck manufacturers Inzile and Volta Motors. The common denominator is that they are all committed to electrical technology and that, due to the structure and business model, they could share suppliers and some processes. The intention of assembling vehicles in the Free Trade Zone for the last-mile delivery is a variable shared by the founding partners. Sources familiar with reindustrialization point out that this segment has been reinforced by a new actor: the British truck manufacturer Tevva.
The figure of the electric utility is also quite widespread in your project, with ranges of different ranges, from luxury to affordable prices of less than 10,000 euros. There QEV, Ronn Motor, and Hispano Suiza apply. And some of these brands also work on other smaller vehicles with a rising market, such as electric scooters or ‘scooters’. They also intend to relaunch the mythical brand ‘Ebro‘, which in the past manufactured the first tractors that were assembled on the old Iberian Motor.
Without Tanks and with logistics
This ‘hub’ puzzle is not closed and the parties will have to finish composing it at the meeting on Friday the 21st. Without this ruling out new meetings to finish defining the final photograph and with the obligation that the result be subject to consensus between the Ministry of Industry, the ‘Ministry’ of Business, Nissan and the unions. This factor is one of the commitments agreed in the framework of reindustrialization and plays against pieces such as Tess Defence, a manufacturer of military armor that the Ministry of Industry tried to locate in the Free Trade Zone for maintenance tasks and that within a period of five years secured 600 jobs. The rejection of the Generalitat makes it difficult for this actor to break into the equation again.
The Belgian group Punch, which intended to start building Nissan NV200 models for emerging markets, is still hoping to join the reindustrialization or not. The problem with its fit, according to several sources familiar with the process, is that it requires too large a space for its fitting with the ‘hub’. Which could cause it to end up falling given the priority of this choral candidate right now.
The space and weight that logistics ends up having is another element to be defined and that will depend on how many viable industrial projects end up taking shape. The special delegate of the State in. the Consortium of the Free Trade Zone, Pere Navarro, has been the main supporter of these alternatives, despite the opinion of the Administration and, especially, unions. These two are suspicious of the working conditions of logistics companies (on average well below those of the automobile), as well as of their pulling effect on Catalan industries. Business groups such as Panattoni, Goodman, JLL or Merlin Properties have publicly expressed their interest in the strategic land in the Zona Franca, near the Barcelona industrial dock.
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