The new battery assembly area at Skoda’s factory in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic, positions the brand at the forefront of the VW Group in terms of electric vehicle battery production, being, in fact, the brand of the German conglomerate that produces the most batteries. This infrastructure required an investment of around 205 million euros, occupies an area of 55,000 m2, and assembles the first cell to pack systems of the German group, at a rate of one per minute – a production capacity that, considering the working hours and shifts of the factory unit, allows the production of 1,100 systems per day, or 335,000 per year.
“With this investment, Skoda gains the status of the largest manufacturer of electric vehicle batteries in the VW Group”, stated Thomas Schäfer, CEO of the largest European car manufacturer. The Czech brand has already produced nearly 1.4 million batteries in Mladá Boleslav since 2019.
The investment has also increased the level of automation in production (now around 84%), due to the contribution of 131 industrial robots. At the same time, a 30% reduction in costs associated with the process was achieved, also due to the use of standardized cells and the shift to LFP (lithium iron phosphate) chemistry, which is cheaper than NMC (nickel, manganese, and cobalt).
