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A quick look back: In October 2020 , Arrival announced its first micro-factory in the US, and battery-electric buses are to be built in York County, South Carolina. In March 2021 , the company announced that it would build another microfactory in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. The e-transporters for UPS are to be assembled there. The US headquarters of Arrival has also been located in Charlotte since December 2020 .
So the choice of location for the battery assembly that has now been announced is not surprising. Arrival is investing around 11.5 million US dollars (around 10.2 million euros) and creating 150 jobs. The battery modules produced there should be able to be used in all arrival platforms, i.e. both the vans and the buses. This is made possible by the plug & play hardware and the specially developed software that runs on all Arrival components. This should enable customers to simply swap individual modules during operation and not the entire battery pack.
However, the plant in Charlotte is a pure module assembly. The message does not reveal where Arrival gets the battery cells from, which are then assembled into modules in its own system.
However, it is clear what happens to the cells after they have been used in the vehicle: Arrival recently entered into a cooperation with Li-Cycle for the recycling of used batteries from Arrival's e-vehicle fleets in the USA and Europe.
By the way, it is the second eMobility battery project for North Carolina within a few days: Toyota Motor North America recently announced that it is building a battery plant for hybrid vehicles in Greensboro .
arrival.com