Gotion's €950m Spain battery cathode and recycling project wins government approval, backed by €138m in PERTE grants
Chinese battery maker Gotion High-Tech and Spain's Ministry of Industry have officially confirmed a €950m (approximately US$1.09bn) investment in Valladolid to construct a battery cathode production plant and a battery recycling facility. The project will proceed in two phases: Phase One, budgeted at €411.5m, targets a recycling plant capable of processing up to 200,000 tonnes of battery material annually; Phase Two, budgeted at €539.1m, will produce 200,000 tonnes of cathode material per year. Construction is targeted to begin in 2027, though Gotion has not provided firm completion timelines for either phase. The Spanish government is supporting the investment with €138m in grants through the PERTE funding programme (Spain's strategic project scheme for economic recovery and transformation), €46m more than had previously been reported. The PERTE programme has previously supported Volkswagen's Seat brand, Stellantis Group, and Volkswagen's battery division PowerCo. Gotion's single largest shareholder is Volkswagen Group, giving the project a significant European ownership dimension alongside its Chinese operational roots. The cathode plant is described by Spain's Transport Minister Óscar Puente as unique within the European Union, targeting the supply chain gap Europe most needs to close — cathode production — since cell manufacturing capacity is scaling faster than access to upstream materials. Gotion plans to pair the Spanish facilities with a 20 GWh battery cell plant in nearby Morocco. The project joins a fast-growing cluster of Chinese-linked battery investment in Spain, including CATL's joint venture with Stellantis in Aragon and Envision AESC's plant in Extremadura.
Why this matters
This is a high-value, multi-phase infrastructure and manufacturing investment with direct EU industrial policy dimensions. The PERTE grant structure — state aid within EU-approved frameworks — means Spanish and EU regulatory sign-off has already been secured, reducing one layer of legal risk. For transactional lawyers, the deal activates project development, regulatory, and foreign direct investment advisory, particularly given Gotion's Chinese ownership and the EU's heightened scrutiny of Chinese capital in strategic sectors. The Morocco pairing adds a cross-border supply chain dimension that will require trade law and customs advisory alongside the core project documentation. The Volkswagen shareholder link complicates the simple 'Chinese FDI' narrative but does not remove it.
On the Ground
On a project of this scale, a trainee would be coordinating regulatory filing summaries — tracking PERTE grant conditions, planning consents, and environmental permits across the Valladolid site — and assisting with technology transfer agreement review if IP is being moved between Gotion's Chinese operations and the Spanish facilities. Grid connection analysis for the manufacturing facilities would also be an early due diligence task.
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