Mercedes flipped the switch in July: Now the motto is "electric only", announced CEO Ola Källenius.
So that the quick switch to electromobility really works, the Stuttgart-based car manufacturer also wants to take care of the battery cells themselves in the future.
"Mercedes-Benz is building a European battery champion with global ambitions," is the headline of a press release in which the plans are implemented.
According to this, Mercedes needs a capacity of 200 gigawatt hours by the end of the decade and is planning to build eight cell factories together with partners around the world, four of them in Europe.
Susanne Preuss
Business correspondent in Stuttgart.
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As partners for the project, Mercedes has won the French oil company Total Energies and the car company Stellantis, which unites brands like Opel, Peugeot and Citroen as well as Fiat and Chrysler under one roof.
A year ago, Total and Stellantis founded a joint venture called the Automotive Cells Company (ACC), in which Mercedes-Benz now has a one-third stake.
Accordingly, Mercedes will also receive two of a total of six seats on the ACC Supervisory Board, according to the press release.
Age of electric mobility
“The participation is a milestone on the way to CO2 neutrality,” says Daimler CEO Ola Källenius. Through joint production in Europe, you can secure the necessary deliveries, use economies of scale and offer your own customers superior technology. "We are also helping to ensure that Europe remains a center of the automotive industry - even in the age of electromobility." Currently, battery cells for electric cars are almost exclusively supplied by Asian companies, which has been recognized as a strategic risk for several years. Volkswagen has secured a stake in the young Swedish cell manufacturer Northvolt in order to secure its own electric offensive. The declared aim of ACC is to become the European market leader for battery cells and modules.
More than seven billion euros will be invested in ACC in order to achieve capacities of at least 120 gigawatt hours in Europe by the end of the decade. While Mercedes is expected to invest less than a billion euros, some of the money will come from the state coffers. It was only at the beginning of September that Opel received a promise from Federal Minister of Economics Altmaier that the conversion of the previous engine plant in the Palatinate city of Kaiserslautern into a battery cell factory would be supported with 437 million euros. Similarly, France is to subsidize the construction of a battery cell factory in Douvrin in northern France. Mercedes is to receive battery cells and modules from these two factories as early as the middle of the decade. Further possible locations for gigafactories are still being sought.
According to the information, Mercedes wants to supplement the high-end cell development with the planned pilot plant in Stuttgart. The Stuttgart-based automaker is not a newcomer to the business. Daimler and Evonik made the first attempt in 2009 and developed battery cells for the Smart subcompact. The activities were then discontinued with the argument that battery cells were largely interchangeable standard parts that you did not have to develop yourself. Systematic investments in the battery business have only been made in the past two years. In addition, Total subsidiary Saft brings more than a hundred years of experience in the field of long-life battery systems as well as electric and hybrid drives to the ACC joint venture.
A specific requirement for all partners is CO2-neutral production, which is why electricity from renewable energies should primarily be used for production.
In addition, critical materials would be reduced with the help of new technologies and only raw materials from certified mining would be used.
For a closed raw material cycle, the battery cells from ACC should be more than 95 percent recyclable.
In Stuttgart, however, it is emphasized that ACC will not be the only source of procurement for battery cells in the future either.
Mercedes relies on a highly standardized battery kit that enables the integration of cells and modules from different partners through uniformly designed interfaces.