Stellantis opens its First Battery Technology Center in Italy

The technology center’s power system can manage up to 1.2 kilovolts (kV) and 2.2 megawatts (MW) per test cell.

Turin, Italy – Stellantis N.V., its First Battery Technology Center opens in Turin, Italy, at the Mirafiori complex.Stellantis' capacity to design, develop, and test battery packs, modules, high-voltage cells, and software that will power next Stellantis brand vehicles is improved by the €40 million investment to build this cutting-edge facility. The center is among the largest in Europe and the largest in Italy.

The majority of the more than 100 workers at the Mirafiori Battery Technology Center are upskilled Stellantis employees who will perform and supervise climatic stress tests, lifespan durability testing, software development and calibration for battery management systems (BMS), and dismantling of packs and cells for analysis and benchmarking.

Stellantis is also building a Battery Technology Center for North America, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, as part of a global battery development and manufacturing network that will include six gigafactories.

Mr. Ned Curic, Stellantis Chief Engineering and Technology Officer. Said that, We are in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redefine mobility, providing smart and sustainable solutions for our customers,“Our new Battery Technology Center at Mirafiori brings together the tools and talented people we need to design, test, verify and produce class-leading products that will meet our customers’ needs and accelerate bringing class-leading electric vehicles to customers around the world.”

The Stellantis strategy to build class-leading BEVs with customer-focused performance is based on vertical integration of the key milestones for electric vehicle battery packs, from design, through research and testing, to manufacturing. The Stellantis battery plan comprises a dual chemistry strategy to service all clients, design efficiency in battery cells and modules, and housing and pack assembly, for cost competitiveness, as described in the EV Day 2021 presentation.

The Mirafiori Battery Technology Center covers 8,000 square meters (86,111 square feet), spread over three levels. The heart of the center is 32 climatic test chambers – 24 walk-in chambers for testing battery packs and eight chambers for testing cells.

The climate in the 24 walk-in chambers can be controlled for humidity and temperature, with a range from -40 to 60 degrees Celsius (-40 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit) and a maximum change of 20 degrees per minute. The center can test up to 47 battery packs in parallel.

Designed for future growth, the technology center’s power system can manage up to 1.2 kilovolts (kV) and 2.2 megawatts (MW) per test cell.

The eight cell chambers can test 96 cells concurrently. This area of the technological center will be primarily focused on testing cutting-edge battery chemistry and characterizing cell behavior for future development.

Stellantis announced aims to achieve a 100% passenger vehicle BEV sales mix in Europe and a 50% passenger car and light-duty truck BEV sales mix in the United States by 2030 as part of the Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan. The company is acquiring about 400 GWh of battery capacity to be supported by six battery manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe in order to meet these sales ambitions. By 2038, all scopes included, Stellantis is on target to become a carbon net zero corporation with a single-digit percentage compensation of leftover emissions.