Development and production of batteries will play a crucial role in Europe’s decarbonisation efforts. Through cutting fossil fuel usage in transportation and electricity production, batteries will help bring down emissions from two sectors which contribute heavily to global emissions. Currently, large-scale political and commercial capital is being mobilised to establish European battery production capabilities as well as a specialised supply chain. Both on a regional, municipal and national level this is one of the most ambitious industrial endeavours in decades. However, there is a distinct lack of credible estimates for the sector’s potential effect on employment and wider economic impact.

In this note we present our estimates for the European battery cell market in 2030, price development, as well as production and value added. The main focus, however, will be jobs creation and economic impact (indirect job creation) in the European battery market. Finally, we take a brief look at the effect factories can have for small and mid-sized cities.

In this note, we employ two different methods to estimate the numbers of jobs in the industry in 2030. We estimate that the number of direct jobs in European battery cell production in 2030 will be 150,000. If we include the indirect effect, we estimate that the battery production value chain can create and sustain roughly 735,000 new jobs in Europe by 2030. In addition, we discuss possible societal effect for small or mid-sized cities which attract large battery production facilities.