The story of how Valencia managed to attract the investment in the SEAT-Volkswagen battery gigafactory made this Tuesday by the CEO of Power Electronics, David Salvo, through the Valencian Battery Alliance has had a response from the Botànic. The then president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig, assured yesterday, when asked about this issue, that it was a "political strategy to achieve a gigafactory, as has been achieved."
Puig added that "there has always been the intention that a new plant could be built by Power or by other companies that participated in that project," but he noted that if only Volkswagen's investment occurs it would be "very positive." "for this autonomy.
For his part, Joan Baldoví, current trustee of Compromís en las Corts Valencianes, said he was unaware of the process, but opined that "if in the end a large company is established and generates employment and industry it would be good". Baldoví wanted to keep in mind that "a great company, which could be abroad, will be in the Community".
Other members of Compromís who at that time shared the government with Puig have been more critical of the news, to the point of describing what happened as “shame, lack of respect and deception” by the former president and the PSPV towards their government partners and the Valencian society.
The statements of Salvo, whose company led the project presented two years ago, call into question the staging of the project, whose objective, as the businessman explained, was to achieve "a battery factory to be located in the Valencian Community." The businessman recognized that Power Electronics had a similar project, which he finally discarded due to similarities with PowerCO in the applied technologies. “What we did was collaborate and set up the Alliance and act as a tractor until PowerCO arrived,” said Salvo, who said he had gained nothing in this process other than “helping the Valencian Community.”
Sources from the previous Consell corroborate how Llíria's firm withdrew from the project when SEAT-Volkswagen appeared, understanding that it could never compete with the automobile giant. A person who shared more than one meeting with David Salvo does recognize that, when the Generalitat Valenciana devised the Valencian Battery Alliance to position itself in this new market, it looked among the companies for someone to lead it. Given Ford's refusal, the same sources say, it was Power Electronics that offered to do it. David Salvo also explained the same thing when it was seen that Ford was not coming in to lead the project. "I told them how a project would have to be done if they wanted to make it viable," Salvo said in statements to the media.
More than two years after that story, the former Valencian president argued that the Sagunt project is "the most important industrial investment that will be made in Spain in the coming years, and the most important that has been made in the Valencian Community" and that His government always tried to have “all possible options.”
Finally, when asked about the controversial news, the councilor and spokesperson for the Consell, Ruth Merino, avoided being critical and pointed out that the objective of the Valencian Government is to “make things easy to attract investment.” Regarding this investment in particular, she clarified that “it is true that unfortunately we were used to the previous government making many announcements behind which there was nothing. But in this case we have the Sagunt plant that is moving forward.”
