British-American vehicle manufacturer Arrival today announced it plans to establish an $11.5 million battery plant in Charlotte, North Carolina. The factory will be the company’s third overall facility in the city. It will be located just steps away from its soon-to-be-complete North American headquarters. Once the plant is operational, it will supply batteries to the company’s Van “Microfactory,” creating approximately 150 additional jobs.
“By bringing the assembly of our proprietary High Voltage Battery Modules in-house, we’re striving to be as vertically integrated as possible,” Arrival CEO Mike Ableson said. “This will enable us to have even greater control over the functionality and cost of our products and pass those cost savings on to the customer while also working toward our goal of zero waste production.” The company told TechCrunch the facility should have a production capacity of up to 350,000 battery modules per year.
Arrival has a lot riding on the success of its Van EV. In 2020, UPS ordered 10,000 electric trucks from the automaker, with the option to buy an additional 10,000 vehicles if everything goes well. The announcement comes on the same day Toyota said it would build a $1.29 billion battery plant in central North Carolina.
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