Lithium-ion battery production could increase by 10x its original target number if Daimler and Evonik get their way.
According to a report in Germany’s Handelsblatt, the companies want to invest an additional €200million in their joint lithium-ion manufacturing venture Deutsche Accumotive GmbH & Co. KG to boost production at the plant that is currently under construction.
The original target for the plant was to produce 300,000 cells a year by 2011 but this is likely to increase to 2.9million cells a year in 2013.
Daimler wants electric drive vehicles to be made more rapidly available to avoid paying billions in fines for exceeding the European required fleet average of 130g/km of carbon dioxide (CO2). If Mercedes sells 800,000 units, as it expects, in 2012 with an average emission level of 160g/km it could face fines of €2.1billion according to the report – however, having around 50,000 electric cars in that volume would slash the fines to around €115million.
As for the company itself, it denies the connection and commented that it is 100 per cent confident it will meet its CO2 targets alone with an improvement in conventional technology.
