STELLANTIS WILL BATTLE TOYOTA WITH NEW $2.8-BILLION BATTERY TECH CENTER
Of Detroit's three automakers, Stellantis North America has been the laggard in delivering compelling battery-electric vehicles to the US market, well behind General Motors but also trailing Ford. And the company's recent history sort of explains why: In January 2021, well after the Chevrolet Bolt EV arrived and about the time Ford launched the Mustang Mach-E, Stellantis was born from the merger of French Groupe PSA and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
So while GM and Ford (and pretty much every automaker on the planet) were pivoting quickly to EVs while nervously watching Tesla's explosive growth from the Model 3 and Model Y, Stellantis was dealing with the growing pains of just trying to consolidate global operations, accommodate several different languages, and understand how more than a dozen automotive brands could actually fit together.
This week, Stellantis is making up for lost time, celebrating the opening of a new Battery Technology Center in Windsor, Ontario, to focus well beyond BEVs to include hybrids and plug-in hybrids, in keeping with Stellantis' multi-powertrain strategy to give consumers their propulsion system of choice, including internal-combustion Hemi V8s. The new tech center helps Stellantis line up better with Toyota, the king of hybrids. And it can't come too soon.
Why Stellantis Needs Battery Tech Hub
"The freedom of choice is what we've been communicating, and we're well-prepared for it," Micky Bly, senior vice president of Global Propulsion Systems Engineering for Stellantis, told employees gathered inside for a celebration of the new tech center today. And in a few words, Bly pretty much summarized Stellantis' approach to the EV market.
"We never dove all the way in. We never stayed all the way out. And this facility is helping us continue that growth within Stellantis."
–Micky Bly, Stellantis Senior Vice President-Global Propulsion Systems Engineering
It was Bly who pushed for the $2.8 billion investment, announced in May 2022, to build the battery tech center as an extension of Stellantis's Automotive Research and Development Center in Windsor. This year, the ARDC celebrates 30 years of automotive development and testing, as a satellite of the Stellantis North American tech center across the Detroit River in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
Some 800 engineers and technicians work at ARDC with a full chassis dynamometer, four-post chassis shaker, virtual reality simulator, and testing for everything from extreme weather to brake and seat durability.
All About Extending Range, Reducing Cost
For the new battery center, it's certainly handy to have the Dodge Charger Daytona EV assembled nearby at Stellantis' Windsor plant. The tech center, working in tandem with a companion Stellantis facility in Turin that opened in 2023, has 35 technicians and engineers (with perhaps room for 20 more in the future) for extensively testing the charging and discharging cycles for high-voltage lithium-ion batteries, gathering data, and analyzing how they perform as a way to predict their behavior in certain conditions.
Testing can be done independently or as part of a battery pack, to determine if it will be compatible with a particular chassis. The facility isn't focused on developing new battery chemistry but instead on helping extend driving range and reducing cost. The center houses 35 walk-in climatic cells for testing up to 63 battery packs, as well as 11 reach-in cells for testing up to 132 cells. That's 11 test chambers, and each one can support up to 12 battery cells. Testing temperatures within the chambers can swing from -40° F to 176° F.
'This is the future of Stellantis'
Bly recalls a much different market that was leaning more aggressively toward BEVs five years ago, as Stellantis was considering whether to build the new tech center.
"We had great need at the time for electrification, and we needed it in North America... and America started to ramp up its electrification," Bly said. While saying next that "none of that has changed," well, the cancellation of federal tax credits and several EV programs, including Ram's full-size pickup, says otherwise. But he's convinced a multi-energy approach is best.
"We continue to see electrification activities grow within the North American region, whether it's BEVs, hybrids, or plug-in range extenders along the way."
–Micky Bly
Stellantis Canada CEO and President Trevor Longley says the auto industry is "obviously... at an inflection point" as automakers pursue various propulsion systems, autonomous vehicles, new safety technologies, and software-defined vehicles. For Stellantis, the ARDC and new BTC will be "one of our core facilities around the world" to take the automaker forward. "This is the future of Stellantis. This is the future of our vehicles being built right here."
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
Stellantis told us two months ago about a flood of new vehicles coming to global markets as part of the FaSTLAne 2030 product strategy, including 11 all-new vehicles specifically for North America. The automaker said the multi-energy approach means expanded hybrid offerings, the introduction of range-extended electric vehicles (such as the upcoming Ramcharger and Jeep Grand Wagoneer variant), as well as battery-electrics. With all those powertrains in the pipeline, the new Windsor battery tech center makes sense.
2026-08-06T00:54:34Z
