German battery maker Varta files insolvency applications

https://www.reuters.com/business/german-battery-maker-varta-files-insolvency-applications-2026-07-24/

46•giuliomagnifico•1h ago

Comments

meangenehackman•48m ago

FTA - They lost Apple as their main customer. Apple is switching to Chinese battery manufactures.

petcat•39m ago

> Varta lost its key customer in the spring: Apple plans to source the rechargeable "CoinPower" button cells for its AirPods headphones from China in the future.

It's another tough loss for German and European industry. Battery tech requires a lot of electricity and German energy prices are simply not competitive. And EU regulations limit how much the German government can subsidize industrial electricity costs.

Lots of debt, expensive labor, expensive energy, and EU Battery Regulation and limits on subsidies all adds up to just losing the business completely to China.

philipwhiuk•33m ago

The assumption that Europeans can just absorb high energy prices is crazy. Ought to be a national imperative to invest in infrastructure to lower prices.

p-e-w•27m ago

Lol. Depending on the country and who the buyer is, 50-80% of energy prices are taxes and levies. Those prices have nothing to do with missing infrastructure.

thyristan•23m ago

The problem there is the "national imperative" part imho. All EU politicians are hell-bent on ignoring any kind of market-based solutions, doing everything through regulations and picking winners. So there will never be a proper market equilibrium and therefore prices will always be higher than in places without all those regulatory interventions.

Investment won't help there in any way, because if that investment were worth it, it would already happen because of market forces. If it doesn't happen on its own, then the state (doesn't matter which level) has to do it, which means using tax money, which means that prices will rise. So that state investment will further skew the market equilibrium, putting the EU further behind.

jojomodding•19m ago

I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say. There is currently a lot of demand for building out solar and wind in Germany. There is also large demand for building battery storage. The demand especially for the latter comes from the mismatch between supply and demand in electricity markets, so in a sense the battery operators hope to do arbitrage in a way that will also increase the efficiency of the market (by allowing the use of solar after dark).

This is very much a market-based solution. What the state has to do is provide permits and stuff for getting the batteries etc. actually built; which the state is doing but not as fast as it could right now. (at least in Germany)

thyristan•11m ago

It would be a market-based solution if the state wouldn't interfere with the markets in major ways. E.g. many battery projects in Germany are nonviable due to the fact that some less-efficient but cheaper battery technologies are verboten. Meaning the market gets screwed again. There are also fees and taxes on power transit that are set up in such a way that energy storage is disadvantaged compared to energy production, especially gas-based energy production. Hydro storage e.g. is comparable to gas peaker plants in the quickness of powering up/down, but hydro storage pays transmission fees twice, once to charge, once to discharge...

gbil•30m ago

You forgot the new US tarrif because of "forced labor"! At least in China things are much better on labor side!

Sorry couldn't resist....

sajithdilshan•17m ago

I think it's a self made crisis. They turned off their atomic power plants in the middle of an energy crisis and now importing far expensive natural gas from middle east and USA

Apreche•37m ago

I only encountered this brand when trying to buy batteries for old cameras. It would be a shame if some of those less common varieties were no longer available.

tecleandor•32m ago

I find it regularly when buying car batteries (the regular 12V ones), and in fact I bought one for a friend just a couple weeks ago.

They're kinda popular at least around Europe.

edit: I just remembered when I worked on TV production some years ago, and they bought big boxes of the "Industrial" variety of AA cells for the wireless mics and in ears.

lovegrenoble•33m ago

Rip German industry. Gerhard Schroeder was a good Chancellor.

Tade0•31m ago

Schroeder lobbied for Germany to remain dependent on Russian gas. Huge net negative in the long run.

ErneX•25m ago

My guess is OP was being sarcastic.

jojomodding•23m ago

You can never know. People in Germany have wildly divergent takes on what would be good for the country right now and some things that are acceptable to say in mainstream circles seem batshit insane to me.

ShinyLeftPad•8m ago

Isn't that freedom of speech?

usrnm•19m ago

Genuinely curious, what alternatives were there in the 2000s? Did dependency on Russian gas doom German manufacturing or did it provide it 20 additional years of artificial life support?

thyristan•16m ago

mertbio•29m ago

The sentiment seems to be that this is unique to Germany but is there any country that can rival China in manufacturing?

dmix•23m ago

Definitely not the ones who spent the last two decades being anti-growth and high cost just to suddenly realize they do need to have their own domestic businesses.

Incipient•19m ago

Varta has moved (outsourced?) pretty much all consumer batteries we get in Australia to China.

ShinyLeftPad•13m ago

Many can, they just choose not to go. They balance the economy instead of going all in on manufacturing and export. They don't suppress domestic consumption, have strong labor protection laws etc.

sleepyguy•13m ago

> is there any country that can rival China in "Government subsidized" manufacturing?

FIFY

mr_toad•2m ago

It’s not just government money. Factory workers wages in China are still a lot lower than western countries, and they have a lot fewer labor rights.

Also, the government hinders as often as it helps, since they can always take over an industry or make it’s CEO disappear if they feel like it.

mproud•28m ago

Apple giveth, Apple taketh away.

selimthegrim•19m ago

Who's the Andy and who's the Bill in Apple now?

TheChaplain•24m ago

It's not that bad, they still make money on consumer- and micro batteries. Needs a bit of restructuring.

InsideOutSanta•16m ago

Yeah, they make some of the best low-self-discharge rechargeables. All of my AA and AAAs are Varta. They're extremely prominent in lots of stores in Europe. When I read the headline, I was like, "But how?" but the Apple angle makes sense.

gib444•16m ago

If this were a US company with better PR, I wonder if it would have read more like:

"Varta Boldy Undertakes Strategic Restructuring to Unlock Value and Sharpen Business Focus"

m00dy•14m ago

so sad to see Germany's fall right in front of our eyes.

sajithdilshan•11m ago

As the brits would say, write off Germans at your own peril. They survived two world wars and still became the biggest economy in Europe, so time would tell if they would be able to turn the tide around for a 3rd time

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