Features
6 nov 18

Daimler’s Accumotive gets up to speed for EQC


The Kamenz-based battery assembly division of Daimler, near Dresden, is expanding its workforce to roughly 1,000 by the end of the year to ramp up the output of battery packs for the electric Mercedes EQC, the OEM says.

At present a second battery factory is being built at this site with an investment of €500 million. This will be one of the largest and most modern battery factories worldwide, according to Daimler. Accumotive does not produce its own lithium ion cells, incidentally, but purchases them from LG Chem and then packages them into modules for Mercedes and Smart vehicles.

“We are taking big steps in the direction of electromobility. At Accumotive we will double the number of employees until the end of the year 2018. We will achieve this almost one year earlier than initially planned. We are thus heading for the start of production of the EQC in spring 2019,” announced Dieter Zetsche.

€1 billion global investment

Daimler is investing more than one billion Euros in a global battery production network with in total eight factories at six locations on three continents. This includes in Germany Kamenz and Stuttgart-Untertürkheim with two battery factories each as well as Sindelfingen, Peking (China), Bangkok (Thailand) and Tuscaloosa (USA).

The second battery factory in Kamenz has been designed as a CO2-neutral factory. A power station and a photovoltaic system will – in connection with fixed battery storage – provide the production facility with energy. The construction of the second factory on a 20-hectare site quadruples the production and logistic area in Kamenz to a total of around 80.000 m2.

 

Authored by: Dieter Quartier