Will Mercedes’ electric vans get battery cells from AESC?

AESC could supply Mercedes-Benz with battery cells in Spain from the middle of this decade. According to a media report, the battery cells produced on the Iberian Peninsula will be delivered to the Spanish Mercedes-Benz Vans plant.

The Spanish portal motor.es reports that the two companies have allegedly signed a supply contract. However, neither has so far confirmed this.

AESC (formerly Envision AESC) is planning a cell factory in the Spanish town of Navalmoral de la Mata with subsidies from the state government. The factory will have a capacity of up to 50 GWh and should be operational in 2025. According to the report, an undefined proportion of this will go to the Spanish Mercedes plant in Vitoria.

Vitoria will become one of the global production sites for electric vans based on the new VAN.EA platform from 2026. Mercedes-Benz currently manufactures the Vito, Vito Tourer and V-Class midsize vans there – as well as their electric versions, the eVito, eVito Tourer and EQV.

Should the deal in Spain be realised, it would not be the first supplier relationship between AESC and the Mercedes-Benz Group: the Stuttgart-based passenger car division will also be one of the customers of AESC’s US factory in Kentucky. The latter deal was announced in April 2022. From the middle of the decade, AESC will supply Mercedes’ battery assembly plant in Alabama, which opened in March 2022. AESC will be an “important supplier,” Mercedes said. The battery packs for the Tuscaloosa vehicle plant are manufactured in Bibb County – currently for the EQE SUV and EQS SUV.

Navalmoral de la Mata, where AESC is building its Spanish battery factory, is located in the west of the country in the province of Cáceres. The Mercedes-Benz Vans plant, on the other hand, is located in northern Spain, in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital of the autonomous Basque region.

It is still not clear which models Mercedes-Benz Vans will build in Spain—however, the “Van Electric Architecture” or VAN.EA, will be the basis for the medium-sized and large vans. The large vans – i.e. the Sprinter segment – will be supplied by the company from its plants in Jawor (Poland) and Düsseldorf. The medium-sized vans will continue to come from Vitoria. It remains to be seen whether these models will still roll off the production line as eVito and EQV. Ranges of “well over 500 kilometres” were announced for the private customer luxury vans.

motor.es (in Spanish)