Serbia will build a gigafactory for the production and recycling of batteries for electric vehicles, says the Serbian Chamber of Commerce.

The battery manufacturer ElevenE plans to invest €1 billion ($1.16 billion) in the project and the plant will be located in the city of Cybotica.  The company will invest €550 million in the first phrase of the construction of the factory, which is to be completed in 2024, Kallanish notes.

After the completion of the first product line, a gigafactory will be built, which will produce a total capacity of 300 megawatts/year.  After two years the production will be expanded to 8 gigawatts.

Last week, European clean tech investor EIT InnoEnergo announced that it was investing in ElevenE in order to support the plans for its development.  It expects to reach 16 GW/y.

The Serbian manufacturer develops its own technology for the production fo lithium-iron-phosphate batteries for EVs.

According to the analysts, Serbia has one of the largest lithium deposits in the world.  In the summer, the British-Australian giant RioT into announced that it plans to invest over $2.4 billion in the development of lithium mines in the country.

In 2020, Japan's Nidex corporation announced it will spend 200 billion yen ($1.9 billion) on a new plant in Serbia to build batteries for EVs.  

The plant, which follows construction of an EV motor plant in China is scheduled to open in 2023 in Novi Sad, with annual production of between 200,000-300,000 units/year.

Nidec will start producing EV drive motors in France and Poland as well, starting in 2022, but the Serbian facility will become one of the company's largest production hubs in Europe.