The factory, which will be one of Europe’s biggest, is being developed by Automotive Cells Company (ACC), a joint venture between Mercedes-Benz, Total Energies subsidiary Saft and Stellantis (the car maker created in 2021 by the merger of Fiat-Chrysler and Peugeot owner PSA Group).
The factory will be built on a 34-hectare brownfield site in Kaiserslautern next to the Opel component plant.
The first of three production lines, covering an area just under 70,000m2, is scheduled for completion in 2025 with a production capacity of 13.4GWh. All three production lines are due for completion by 2030 when capacity will reach 40GWh, enough to supply batteries to over 600,000 vehicles per year.
As part of the site preparations, Arcadis has provided environmental due diligence, decontamination and deconstruction services for 1.3 million cubic metres of converted space, managing approval procedures in accordance with Germany’s federal Emission Control Act.
Martijn Karrenbeld, global director for industrial manufacturing at Arcadis, said: "We are seeing massive investments in the gigafactory market globally and, having worked with ACC from the earliest stages of this project, have been able to draw on decades of international experience in delivering large-scale manufacturing facilities, particularly for the automotive industry, all around the world.
ACC’s chief operating officer, Jean-Baptiste Pernot, added: “ACC is focusing on its own production for two main reasons. First, we want to build sustainably producing "green" factories that operate using renewable raw materials and renewable energies, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of our batteries by up to 35%. Secondly, ACC wants to avoid over dependence on batteries and companies from the Asian region, as well as reduce costs."
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