Construction work has begun on Daimler subsidiary ACCUMOTIVE’s second electric vehicle battery production facility, which is being built in Kamenz, Germany, the same town where the first one is located.
The manufacturing facility will result in a roughly four-fold increase in the company’s production and logistics area at the site. The total production and logistics area at the site following completion of the second plant will be around 80,000 square meters. The workforce at the site is expected to be doubled by 2020.
As it stands, the new €500 million production facility is expected to enter into service in mid-2018. As alluded to above, the new facility is in immediate proximity to the firm’s existing battery production facility in Kamenz — both are roughly 50 kilometers from Dresden.
As a reminder, ACCUMOTIVE will be manufacturing the battery pack used in the first Mercedes-Benz EQ electric vehicle models. The new facility will be integral to the EQ line’s success if the vehicles are to be sold in serious numbers.
Minister President of the Free State of Saxony and President of the German Bundesrat, Stanislaw Tillich, commented at a recent ceremony: “The investment is a strong sign of trust in the Saxon location here in the Upper Lausatia. This brings us a great deal closer to our goal of getting the traditional Saxon automotive industry ready for the era of electromobility. Electromobility or stationary energy storage — both segments have a great potential for the future.”
The CEO of Deutsche ACCUMOTIVE GmbH & Co KG, Frank Blome, also commented: “Already in 2012, we started the battery production for vehicles of the brands Mercedes-Benz and smart in Kamenz. For about a year now, we have additionally been producing stationary energy storages. Thanks to the know-how and motivation of our employees we have qualified for a further development step, becoming the competence center for worldwide battery production. In our new factory in Kamenz, we pursue a holistic approach starting sustainability already in our production processes.”
Very notably, the company is building the new facility with the intent of it being a CO2-neutral one. Site power will be provided by a cogeneration unit and a solar photovoltaic (PV) system, paired with multiple stationary energy storage systems. Altogether, around 2 megawatts (MW) of solar PV nameplate capacity will be installed on the new facility’s roof.
Plans are that the Kamenz plants will produce primarily lithium-ion batteries for use in Mercedes-Benz and smart all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, as well as for Mercedes-Benz energy storage systems.
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Former Tesla Battery Expert Leading Lyten Into New Lithium-Sulfur Battery Era — Podcast:
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
