Comau has been chosen by Automotive Cells Firm (ACC), a three way partnership between Stellantis, TotalEnergies/Saft and Mercedes-Benz, to design and develop a extremely built-in battery module manufacturing line for its future Gigafactory in Billy-Bercalu Douvrain, within the north of France.
With the projected capability to finally ramp as much as 40 GWh, ACC is about to turn into a European chief in enabling cleaner, environment friendly mobility for all. Underneath the phrases of the settlement, Comau will provide ACC with the experience and gear wanted to automate manufacturing of the next-generation EV batteries.
That includes the inherent flexibility to deal with each 8- and 16-cell modules, the Comau designed strains will enable ACC to supply as much as 8 Gigawatt hours (GWh) yearly by the tip of 2024.
Moreover, the excellent answer leverages Comau’s prolonged European community, thus guaranteeing native sourcing of know-how, auxiliary gear and elements for the 5 manufacturing strains, three of which produce each fashions whereas two are devoted 8-cell MEB strains.
One of many distinctive parts of the mission was the requirement to make use of a stacking drive of 300-500 decanewtons to supply the 2 distinct module codecs in comparison with the business common of round 100 decanewtons.
To satisfy this problem, Comau and ACC engineers labored in tandem to tailor the method with a view to assure the supposed product geometry and battery traits.
This simultaneous engineering strategy has additionally enabled Comau to take away one of many originally-designed strains, enhancing the method dynamics and serving to ACC optimize its CAPEX investments.
The mission, which highlights Comau’s continued investments within the electrification sector, additionally leverages the corporate’s 45-plus years of experience in automation and digitalization applied sciences.
Comau has each supplied ACC with the required know-how and know-how to automate all the end-to-end manufacturing course of, which incorporates prismatic cell preparation and testing, the stacking, welding and last meeting, all the way in which to the ultimate end-of-line testing.
The whole setup, which integrates a mixture of proprietary and non-Comau merchandise, options Comau’s progressive stacking course of along with its welding, wrapping and electrical testing applied sciences.
As a primary step within the multi-phase mission, the joint engineering group will deploy and optimize the pilot line at ACC’s plant in Nersac, France, earlier than rolling out the full-scale manufacturing line on the firm’s Gigafactory in Billy-Bercalu Douvrain.
With an estimated manufacturing price of 53 jobs per hour, the Comau-designed answer each meets the client’s near-term manufacturing goals whereas delivering the chance for future enlargement as wanted.