German commercial vehicle builder MAN Truck & Bus has topped out its new high voltage battery manufacturing plant in Bavaria.
It said it will make high-voltage batteries from April 2025 in the 17,000 sq. m. plant in Nuremberg. MAN will be the first commercial vehicle manufacturer to start its own battery series production in Germany, it said. The investment, including logistics, infrastructure, buildings and production facilities, totals around €100 million ($106 million).
The State of Bavaria is also funding further research and development into battery technology with around €30 million ($32 million).
The company already makes small-series battery packs for its electric vehicles. The small series production area will gradually convert to the development of the next battery generation and the reconditioning of batteries. From April, the delivered modules will go into battery layers in large series production.
MAN will install over 50 manual and automated assembly stations and seven test benches for quality assurance. Up to 50,000 batteries per year will be built in an initial expansion phase, to be expanded to up to 100,000 high-voltage batteries by 2030 – depending on how the market develops, it said.
Together with the Technical University of Munich, MAN is researching the further development of laser welding, which it said will be used in a future generation of batteries.
Photo: Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (front) with MAN people at the topping-out ceremony for the Nuremberg battery production plant. MAN
