The start-up EV group REE will open a U.K. factory that will have a capacity of 10,000 EV chassis.
REE Automotive Ltd., an automotive technology company and provider of electric vehicle (E.V.) platforms, announced on May 16 that it would build a manufacturing plant in Europe. The facility will be located in Coventry, U.K., and will serve its customer demand in Europe.
According to Financial Times, the facility will cost $15 million. It will have a few direct jobs but is expected its workforce to rise from 150 to 300. The facility is said to have an expected capacity of 10,000 EV chassis.
In its press release, Josh Tech, REE’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “This is an important milestone on our path to commercial production next year. The automated and connected capabilities at our Coventry site are a great foundation for our global operations, as they will enable us to continuously fine-tune our assembly procedures and rapidly deploy them to other sites,”
He also added, “Our cloud-based robotic manufacturing system will be the digital backbone for our assembly lines and give us the local capability to manage our customer-specific manufacturing operations while also allowing us to quickly share and scale best practices internationally across all plants.”
REE said it would partner with Rockwell Automation and Expert Technologies for its robotics and automated assembly. The first assembly line is expected to be operational in the second half of 2022.
The Coventry plant will initially focus on its P7 electric platforms for commercial vehicles such as delivery vans, buses, and recreational vehicles.
The company also plans to have a manufacturing plant located in Austin, Texas by 2023 that will replicate the highly automated cloud-based architecture of its European operations. It will also have an expected capacity of 20,000 EV chassis.
The Coventry facility is approximately 130,000 square feet and includes 4.0 technologies. It will also be partially solar-powered.
