Volvo Group to produce batteries in Belgium

The Volvo Group campus in Ghent, Belgium, is expected to be home to a new battery factory by 2025. (Photo: Volvo Group)

Volvo Group said its truck plant in Ghent, Belgium, will start to produce battery modules in 2025. The company said the investment decision to install battery module manufacturing capacity in Ghent is another important step for the group to shape its future value chain for battery systems. Partners currently supply cells and modules to the group for use in its vehicles.

The battery module manufacturing line in Ghent will use battery cells from partners and from the planned battery cell plant in Sweden.

“We have started the investment process to establish battery module manufacturing in Ghent,” said Jens Holtinger, executive vice president, Group Trucks Operations. “The building is expected to be 12,000 m2 and be located at the Volvo Group manufacturing site. The new high-tech module factory will consist of an almost fully automated process with robots. This means that employees with the necessary competences will be recruited, both externally and by building on our internal competences.”

The investment frame for this first step of module manufacturing is euro 75 million.

The Volvo Group truck assembly plant in Gothenburg, Sweden, is already building heavy-duty electric trucks. In the second half of 2023 the plant in Ghent is also expected to produce battery electric heavy-duty trucks. The battery packs needed to power these electric trucks are built in the Ghent plant.

Volvo Group has said its ambition is that at least 35% of the vehicles sold worldwide will be electric by 2030.