Volkswagen Group announced that it is significantly expanding its electric battery system production at its component plant in Braunschweig.
The expansion will double the plant’s output and, when fully accelerated, will be able to produce 500,000 modular electrically-driven battery systems (Modularer E-Antriebs-Baukasten, MEB in German) per year.
Volkswagen Group announced its MEB platform a few years ago as part of its aggressive approach towards electrifying its fleet. Now it has become the standard platform on which future Volkswagens and their electric vehicles will sit.
So far, drivers have seen the MEB capabilities in Audi’s ID.3, ID.4, and Q4 e-tron. Competitors such as Ford have also leveraged their relationship with VW to use the MEB platform in their smaller electric vehicles in Europe.
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With Volkswagen’s announcement, it is clear that the brand has targets for EV sales and is creating the battery infrastructure to support them.
According to Volkswagen Newsroom, the Braunschweig facility was already operating at a capacity of 250,000 battery systems per year. This additional expansion now matches that output, doubling capacity to 500,000 battery systems per year specifically designed for MEB platforms.
“The strong demand for attractive and affordable electric models based on the modular electric drive matrix has the lines of the first expansion stage working at full capacity, so we have fired up the second stage,” said the CEO of Volkswagen Group Components and member of the Group’s Technology Board of Directors, Thomas Schmall.
Written by | Gabriel Sayago
