Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg team up on battery research
dpa / Die Welt
Two economically powerful southern German states, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, have announced that they will join forces to set up a new battery cell research centre, news agency dpa reports in an article carried by newspaper Die Welt. Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder of the conservative CSU said his state and Green Party-led Baden-Württemberg would launch a “real offensive” to promote battery research, with institutes opening in the cities Ulm, Augsburg and Nördlingen. The state governments would also be calling for additional funding from the federal government, he added.
Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, home to carmakers BMW, Audi and Daimler, recently lost a national tender for Germany’s new battery research institute to western state North Rhine-Westphalia, where research minister Anja Karliczek said the government would invest 500 million euros in the city of Münster to challenge Asian countries’ dominance in battery production. The Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg state governments criticised the decision on grounds that Münster has no links to the car industry, and have called for transparency over how the decision was reached. Minister Karliczek’s constituency borders Münster.
