Anyone who wants to be a leader in the electric age must also establish their own deep added value in the cell.
(Photo: dpa)
An oil multinational, a car conglomerate and a German premium icon want to make a pact to build a European battery cell manufacturer with global aspirations. First of all, it looks like a very strange team. After all, neither Total, Stellantis nor Daimler have particularly strong skills in electrochemical processes.
Nevertheless, Daimler boss Ola Källenius considers this constellation to be “almost ideal” for breaking the Asian supremacy in cells and modules for electric cars. The Swede refers to the enormous experience that both his company and Stellantis bring with them in the large-scale production of components. Perhaps even more decisive is the technical know-how that the Total battery subsidiary Saft can contribute, according to Källenius.
However, doubts about the charisma of the Automotive Cells Company (ACC) are justified. It is true that Saft has been supplying batteries for trains, ships, aircraft, military equipment and emergency power generators for 100 years. However, the company has barely been active in the car segment to date. In order to be on a par with car cell giants like CATL from China, ACC has to buy in plenty of skilled workers.
It is also questionable how ACC will accomplish the feat of meeting the high demands of Mercedes-Benz in terms of energy density and charging capacity and at the same time supplying the volume manufacturer Stellantis with cells that are as cheap as possible. With ACC, the automaker and Total are making a daring bet. The trio wants to pump around seven billion euros into the company in the coming years in order to build up a production capacity of at least 120 gigawatt hours.
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This effort is mitigated by lavish subsidies from Berlin and Paris. But ACC is by no means a sure-fire success. Daimler, Stellantis and Total will have to pay a lot of money until they really start producing larger volumes of qualitative cells by the middle of the decade. That wouldn’t be too bad, after all, the reject rate is initially high for every newcomer. But the Franco-German consortium is very late.
Volkswagen already secured a good 20 percent stake in the Swedish cell manufacturer Northvolt in 2019. Mass production will start in 2023. Daimler only got going two years later; the people of Stuttgart wasted time unnecessarily. Because it was always clear: If you want to be a leader in the electric age, you also have to establish a deep, own added value in the cell.
More: “Battery champion” planned – Daimler joins the cell consortium of Stellantis and Total