Tera invierte 500.000 euros en Alicante para reparar baterías de coches eléctricos

The electric car is a disruption that radically changes the structure of employment in the sector. Broadly speaking, a destruction of employment in the assembly of vehicles is expected, since electric vehicles are easier to assemble, and new needs for their maintenance. That is where Tera is located, a company from Alicante that has invested 500,000 euros to create 15 jobs in its battery subsidiary. The company from the Valencian Community has planned a second phase of investment of 1.2 million with which it will add 40 new workers.

From then on, the penetration of electric vehicles will mark the size of the new market that is opening up in the automotive sector. The first step has been the construction of the battery preparation technology centre.

“Tera is a technology-based industrial company with high added value for the sector that covers an activity that will be necessary for the transition of this mobility in the automotive sector,” explains David Santiago at Mobility Innovation Valencia, which this year was held within the framework of the Valencia Digital Summit 2023.

The aim of the battery repair technology centre is to lay the foundations to position itself in the incipient market after the end of the useful life of each electric car. “We do not know how many vehicles could pass through our facilities during the first year but we are confident that the activity must be implemented and work in the future for this,” they explain from Tera.

The market is clearly incipient. “The new market does not currently have many significant competitors but we do know that there are competitors who are waiting to go to the market,” says David Santiago, who believes that now is the time to position themselves in the market: “We are going to be open to working with all the brands present in the market. We can work throughout the national territory with any manufacturer that has an electric battery.” Aspects with the logistics to transport batteries within the national territory have already been prepared.

“What we are looking for is to position ourselves in the activity. We know that the returns are going to be more interesting in the medium and long term and we are contemplating not only creating the technology centre but also opening the pilot plant. This facility, at its maximum capacity, will be able to treat 150 batteries a day and can be resized according to market needs,” says Santiago.

In fact, the company’s business plan contemplates its internationalization and, as the company’s founder details, they have already had preliminary conversations. “We have proposals to implement other pilot plants in other countries and even on other continents.”

Attention to the national market does not require the creation of new branches in Spain, so all the company’s growth in Spain would be concentrated in the Plà de Vallonga industrial estate in Alicante. The development applied to the new market need from Alicante has been produced by the connections that via AVIA associates there are between the companies that were originally located in the surroundings of the Almussafes factory and that are now expanding throughout the Valencian Community, establishing strong synergies between companies from Valencia and Alicante.

The objective of the pilot plant is to disassemble the batteries of electric vehicles by taking advantage of useful materials to reuse them in second-life batteries that will have uses other than electric cars, Tera explains.