Mercedes and Stellantis will work together on lithium-ion cells. At least 120 GWh in 2030
Mercedes has announced a partnership with the automotive concern Stellantis and TotalEnergies. The company has joined a joint venture called the Automotive Cells Company (ACC) to build factories to manufacture cells, modules, and even lithium-ion batteries.
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ACC was created in 2020 and is supported both nationally in Germany and France, and at the European Union level. According to last year's announcements, the company was to build one lithium-ion cell plant in the aforementioned countries to produce 48 GWh of cells per year by 2030. Now that Mercedes has joined the joint venture, the plans are revised: the total generation of the elements should be at least 120 GWh per year.
Assuming an average battery capacity of an electric vehicle is 60 kWh, annual ACC production in 2030 would be enough to power 2 million vehicles. For comparison: Stellantis alone intends to sell 8-9 million vehicles per year.
Mercedes, Stellantis and TotalEnergies will each receive 1/3 of the joint venture. The construction of the first plant is planned to begin in 2023 in Kaiserslautern (Germany). A second plant will be built in Grands, France, with no start date announced. The main partner providing lithium-ion chemistry know-how will be Saft, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies (formerly Total). The visualization shows that companies may want to unify the format of the cells and use the prismatic option, which is a good compromise between energy density and the safety of cells packed in this way.
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