Dive Brief:
- A joint electric truck battery manufacturing venture by Cummins, Daimler and Paccar is charging forward — despite a shift in U.S. EV policies, Paccar CEO Preston Feight said on a Jan. 28 earnings call.
- Paccar still plans to invest between $600 million and $900 million in the venture, Amplify Cell Technologies, according to a Q4 earnings announcement. Construction on the battery plant broke ground last year near Byhalia, Mississippi.
- “If I could remake the decision now, knowing what I know, I'd make same decision,” Feight said. “It's a long-term, strategic objective for our company to be able to offer our customers a full portfolio of powertrain choices.”
Dive Insight:
Pacer launched the venture with Cummins and Daimler Truck subsidiaries last year and broke ground on the plant that’s less than a 30-minute drive from Memphis, Tennessee.
The multiyear investment commitment called for a 2 million square-foot facility on the 500-acre site to produce lithium-iron-phosphate battery cells, according to a company announcement in July. Paccar said the domestic production was a key part of bringing down the cost of EVs, with partners “committed to leading the commercial vehicle industry’s transition to zero-emissions technologies.”
“Our Amplify Cell Technologies joint venture will allow us to have the lowest cost, highest quality batteries so that we'll be the most competitive in the market,” Feight also said on the call.
The plant has been projected to start production in 2027 and have an annual manufacturing capacity of 21-gigawatt hours, according to the company.
But the OEM suggested to investors that its phasing of the project could be adjusted based on market demands. Those potential changes come as trucking groups welcomed President Donald Trump’s executive order ending EV mandates.
“What we'll do is measure how much capacity we need to install,” Feight said. “So we have some capacity available for the markets that exist. And then we'll just scale capacity based upon market demands for the EVs or hybrids.”
