BMW Group introduced it’s investing round $106 million (100 million euros) between now and 2026 in a brand new electrical car battery testing heart in Germany as a part of its ongoing e-mobility ramp-up.
Positioned in Wackersdorf, 26 miles north of town of Regensburg in japanese Bavaria, the middle can be built-in into the Wackersdorf Innovation Park web site’s present constructing constructions, that are at the moment used to fabricate cockpits for BMW automobiles and bundle car elements for delivery to the corporate’s abroad factories.
On the web site, BMW Group plans to check high-voltage batteries and different electrical powertrain parts for its future fashions very early in improvement, effectively earlier than the beginning of manufacturing.
From mid-2024, when the primary deliverables for BMW Group improvement actions within the subject of high-voltage batteries are anticipated to enter common operation, the Wackersdorf web site will start placing batteries by their paces throughout a complete space spanning 90,869 sq. toes (8,442 sq. meters).
“The BMW Group’s Wackersdorf location is ready to grow to be a serious facilitator for the transformation in the direction of electromobility,” stated Web site Supervisor Christoph Peters. “Along with supplying our abroad vegetation, cockpit manufacturing and, from 2024, door manufacturing for Rolls-Royce fashions, this can grow to be Wackersdorf’s fourth major space of exercise. This, in flip, strengthens our location’s future viability.”
BMW Innovation Park in Wackersdorf
The funding will primarily deal with complicated bench check know-how and the upgrades to the constructing’s present infrastructure wanted for his or her operation. In mid-2024, the so-called “battery testers” can be put into service with the commissioning of the Corridor 80, which is at the moment being reworked for battery testing.
Trying like giant fridges from the surface, the battery testers characteristic cutting-edge excessive tech inside that permits battery cells to be examined 24/7, early of their improvement.
The testers decide {the electrical} efficiency of particular person battery cells throughout charging and discharging beneath totally different circumstances, permitting the simulation of use circumstances that can be related for purchasers later. Initially, parallel testing of a number of hundred battery cells can be potential, however as soon as the ramp-up is full, testing capability will attain a number of thousand.
From 2025 onwards, the testing heart will enter the ultimate part that can enable the validation of BMW Group’s battery-electric automobiles forward of the official launch of sequence manufacturing so as to make sure the required premium high quality.
This can embody subjecting the batteries to vibration and shock checks, for instance, utilizing so-called “shakers.” BMW says there are at the moment only some of those complicated testing gadgets throughout Europe.
The ability will even allow the simulation of endurance checks consisting of complicated driving patterns, together with charging and discharging cycles. Apparently, BMW didn’t say whether or not the corporate’s present cells or the upcoming spherical cells for Neue Klasse EVs – or each – can be examined on the web site.