The battery and its visible modules / Image: Skoda
The gigantic Skoda factory in Mlada Boleslav has acquired a battery manufacturing unit dedicated to the MEB platform. Launched recently, the workshop should produce more than 250,000 units each year. These packs will equip the 100% electric models of the Czech manufacturer but also of Volkswagen, its parent company.
Built in 1905, the Skoda plant in Mlada Boleslav in the Czech Republic produced its 15 millionth vehicle last year. It was an Enyaq, the first electric SUV from the national manufacturer. The car has previously imported its batteries from Germany, where the Volkswagen Group produces all vehicle packs based on the MEB platform. Enyaq is now supplied directly from the Mlada Boleslav factory, which has just inaugurated a battery production line. It thus becomes the group’s second European factory to assemble batteries.
A Russian doll of 55, 62 or 82 kWh
The site does not manufacture the cells, which are supplied by the LG factory in Wroclaw (Poland), but the pack ready to equip the vehicles. A battery ultimately resembles a Russian doll, in which cells (the little pockets that contain the chemicals needed to store electricity) are placed in modules that are themselves integrated into a pack.
Simply add or remove modules to obtain the desired storage capacity. The highest battery option (82 kWh) offered on the Skoda Enyaq thus includes 12 modules of 24 cells. The intermediate version of 62 kWh integrates 9 modules and the smallest, of 55 kWh, is satisfied with 8 modules.
More than 380,000 batteries per year by 2030
The Mlada Boleslav plant plans to assemble more than 250,000 batteries every year. They will be used on board Skoda models but also by other vehicles of the Volkswagen group. An extension is already planned to bring production capacity to more than 380,000 units/year by the end of 2023. The site responds to the gradual electrification of the Skoda catalog, which will include at least three new 100% electric models at the horizon 2030.
