Cellforce plans to significantly expand battery production capacities
The Cellforce Group, the battery joint venture between Porsche and Customcells, has laid the foundation stone for its development and production facility near Reutlingen-Kirchentellinsfurt. In the course of this, it was also announced that production capacity is to be increased tenfold.
Cellforce acquired the 28,151-square-meter site there last year. The company will initially develop and produce high-performance lithium-ion pouch cells for special automotive applications there. To start in 2024, the production facility is to go into operation with an initial capacity of at least 100 MWh per year.
What is new is the announcement that capacity will then be expanded to at least 1 GWh. This corresponds to high-performance battery cells for around 10,000 vehicles. The announcement does not say when the expansion will be completed. Nor does it mention the background to the expansion plans – it is primarily about the foundation stone that has now been laid.
“Our desire is to strengthen the German development as well as production site and to bring a new technology to the global forefront of cell chemistry development,” says Cellforce CEO Markus Gräf. “We have also decided to rely on partnerships and European technology on the production side. With Mühlbauer, Dürr, Coperion, Saueressig, Kampf, PEC, and our neighbour Manz, we are also setting an example here – that we in Europe can do it all ourselves.”
Cellforce and production partner Dürr had commissioned a new electrode coating plant at the beginning of October – the plant is still located at Dürr’s Bietigheim-Bissingen site, but is to move to Cellforce’s Reutlingen-Kirchentellinsfurt plant in the future.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Porsche’s deputy CEO Lutz Meschke repeated the sports car maker’s familiar mantra that the battery cell is the “combustion chamber of the future. “As a manufacturer of luxury electric vehicles and high-performance sports cars, we want to be among the leaders in the global competition for the best-performing battery cell,” Meschke said. Dirk Abendroth, CEO of the Customcells Group, added: “We are honoured that Porsche has relied on us here as a provider of ideas and as a partner – because it also shows us that our approach, our expertise and our business model work.”
The Federal Republic of Germany and the state of Baden-Württemberg are funding the project with around 60 million euros, of which around 17 million euros will come from the state.
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