In 2025, Volvo Trucks will start building battery modules for battery packs for its electric trucks in Ghent. This represents an investment of €75 million. After the summer of 2023, the production of electric trucks will also start at the Ghent facility, according to the company's release.
To date, both the cells and modules for the truck batteries have been supplied to Volvo Trucks by external suppliers. Volvo Trucks is currently looking into building the cells at a Volvo plant in Sweden, close to its existing engine plant in Skôvde. Assembling the modules with the ‘Swedish’ cells will then become the new activity in Ghent. In this way, the Volvo Group wants to bring the know-how in-house. The company already designs and builds its own truck engines. In the future, it wants to do the same with batteries.
Volvo Trucks wants at least 50% of the trucks it sells worldwide to be electric trucks by 2030. Additional module lines will be needed at the Ghent module plant to meet that customer demand.
The Swedish Volvo truck plant in Gothenborg is already building heavy electric trucks on the same line as conventional trucks, the first in the world to do so. The battery packs needed to power those electric trucks will be built at Volvo's Ghent plant. This represents a first within the Volvo Group. The initial capacity of the battery pack plant today is 30,000 battery packs per year.
North Sea Port has defined automotive as one of seven spearhead sectors in its strategic plan. On the industrial side, the assembly plants of Volvo Trucks and Volvo Cars in Ghent are the main drivers in this segment.