Stellantis opens its first EV battery technology center in Italy

Stellantis has recently inaugurated its first Battery Technology Center at the Mirafiori complex in Turin, Italy. The company has invested about €40 million to this "state-of-the-art" facility to enhances its capabilities to design, develop and test battery packs and high-voltage cells, along with software that will power its upcoming electric vehicles.

Further, the battery center will perform and oversee climatic stress tests, lifespan durability testing, battery management system (BMS) software development and calibration, and tear downs of packs and cells for analysis and benchmarking, the company claims. 

"We are in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redefine mobility, providing smart and sustainable solutions for our customers," said Ned Curic, Stellantis Chief Engineering and Technology Officer. 

"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", he added. 

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The Mirafiori Battery Technology Center boasts 32 climatic test chambers, of which 24 walk-in chambers are for testing battery packs and eight chambers for testing cells. Designed for future growth, the technology center's power system can manage up to 1.2 kV and 2.2 MW per test cell.

The eight cell chambers are capable of testing 96 cells in parallel. This part of the technology center will be devoted mainly to screening innovative battery chemistry and cell behavior characterization for future development, the company claims. 

Stellantis has also announced that a Battery Technology Center for North America in Windsor, Ontario (Canada) in on the anvil, as part of a global battery development and manufacturing network that will include six gigafactories.

The automaker is concentrating on the vertical integration of key milestones for EV battery packs – from design, to development and testing, to production – as part of its global strategy for BEVs.