Volkswagen subsidiary PowerCo SE plans to introduce the dry coating process to its battery cell production plants in Europe and North America. Tesla pioneered the new battery manufacturing process with its 4680 cell production.
“Technologies like Dry Coating showcase PowerCo’s technological prowess. We have the necessary know-how and the right experts to take cell production to a new level and offer significant cost advantages to our customers. Our objective is to establish an industrial production of sustainable and affordable batteries,” commented Thomas Schmall, VW AG Board Member, and PowerCo SE’s Supervisory Board chairman.
Volkswagen will work with German printing machine specialist Koenig & Bauer AG to develop PowerCo’s dry coating process for battery cell production. The dry coating process is expected to reduce energy consumption in PowerCo’s battery plants by about 30% and decrease the floor space required to produce cells by 15%.
“What the solid-state cell is to the product, Dry Coating is to production – a real game changer. If scaled successfully, it will give us a unique position on the market and definite competitive advantages,” said Frank Bloom, CEO of PowerCo SE.
Tesla was one of the early—if not the first—automakers to apply the dry coating process to battery cell production. The Model Y maker faced some challenges with the dry coating process while finalizing the assembly of 4680 cells. However, Tesla persevered and is preparing to ramp up 4680 production in California.
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