Swedish vehicle manufacturer Volvo Group said its truck plant in Ghent, Belgium, will start to produce battery modules in 2025.
Up to now, partners have been supplying both cells and modules to the group. Volvo said the decision to install battery module manufacturing capacity in Ghent was to “shape its future value chain for battery systems”.
The battery module manufacturing line in Ghent is expected to be 12,000 sq m and will be able to use battery cells both from partners and from the planned battery cell plant in Sweden.
Volvo spokesperson Claes Eliasson told BEST that the exact battery technology will depend on what the market can offer at the time. “The market is still very limited. We will sort the technology once we get there,” he said.
The 2025 timing of the ramping-up is also tied into expected market developments, Eliasson added. Battery cells are currently supplied by Samsung SDI and others.
Jens Holtinger, Executive Vice President of Group Trucks Operations, said the investment in this first step of module manufacturing totalled €75 million. The battery packs from Ghent will supply Volvo electric truck manufacturing in Belgium and Sweden.
Volvo’s truck assembly plant in Gothenburg, Sweden, is already building heavy-duty electric trucks – it claims to be the first global manufacturer in the world.
In the second half of 2023, the plant in Ghent will also start to produce battery electric heavy-duty trucks.
Volvo said the ambition is for at least 35% of the vehicles sold worldwide to be electric by 2030.
