Inside Our Next Energy's new metro Detroit battery plants

Our Next Energy is scheduled to ship its first electric vehicle batteries, built on a small assembly line in metro Detroit, to customers this week.

By the end of the year, CEO Mujeeb Ijaz said the Novi-based LFP (lithium iron phosphate) battery startup will launch the first phase of its $1.6 billion plant being built in Van Buren Township.

Around 100 employees are expected to begin work at the plant later this year. At capacity, the plant is projected to run at 20 GWh and produce 200,000 units with 2,112 jobs by 2027.

As construction crews work to form up the footings for concrete at the future factory, the company's first batteries are being produced just down the road at a Piston Automotive plant. ONE tapped the Redford Township-based automotive supplier to contract manufacture its first batch of product on a roughly 18,000-square-foot assembly line.

"We came to really like this relationship because they have a depth and understanding of quality, supply chain management, inventory management," Ijaz said.

Those batteries, whose cells are being imported from China, will be supplied to commercial vehicle customers and serve as the first proof point of ONE's products.

Our Next Energy's value proposition for those batteries — and for the cells and packs it intends to produce at its own plant — is energy density. Specifically, the company wants to pack the most range into batteries with limited cobalt and nickel, which are in finite supply and often come from sources with poor human rights records.

ONE's Aries batteries boast 287 Wh/L and about 300 miles of range, compared with the Tesla Model 3's 232 Wh/L. ONE's goal is to eventually commercialize its Gemini battery, a dual chemistry architecture capable of more than 600 miles of range, Ijaz said.

ONE also sets itself apart as a U.S.-based battery maker in an industry dominated by Asia, said Glenn Stevens, executive director of MICHauto and vice president of mobility initiatives for the Detroit Regional Chamber.

"Our dependence on really three countries — China, Korea and Japan — is really not sustainable for our own supply chain and our own companies that want to design, engineer and manufacture vehicles for the future," Stevens said. "So ONE plays a really key role in developing a domestic supply chain with U.S. innovation."

At its line in the Piston plant, workers stuff proprietary, plasma-treated battery enclosures with battery cells, which are meticulously cleaned before being loaded into sequence. They are then bonded to the packs with epoxy. This process — part of ONE's secret sauce — differs from typical modular battery pack manufacturing.

"The battery enclosure is the heart and soul of our energy density," Ijaz said.

From there, the packs are compressed with end plates before going into busbar welding, the point at which the batteries go from being low voltage to "live." From here, the batteries cannot be disassembled or tampered with, only tested for quality and safety.

The internal battery management system — the brains of the battery — is the only serviceable part of the battery after production.

Ijaz said its battery management systems and trays are made by contract manufacturers in Michigan, but he declined to name his suppliers.

The plan is to bring all of the manufacturing together under one roof in ONE's plant. The long-term vision is to also refine battery materials in Michigan for a truly local supply chain, the CEO said.

"We have not yet built any supply chain for processing raw materials," he said. "ONE plans to work with our partners to build those local supply chains that don't exist yet."

Ijaz said the company remains on track to meet the deadlines and fulfill the promises he made last year to the state, which blessed his battery plant with $237 million of state incentives. Chief among those commitments was to begin producing battery cells at the new Van Buren Township factory by the end of the year.

As planned, the company will make that happen by launching the factory in phases, Ijaz said. The first phase will be a line running at 10 MWh, producing early samples of battery cells and packs. Equipment, sourced from South Korea, will be brought in by July and running by the end of the year, and 100 employees are expected at the plant within that time.

At capacity, the plant is expected to produce at 20 GWh, or 200,000 units per year by 2027. Ijaz said the incremental launch of the plant will allow the company to train workers on the line before production kicks into high gear and let the company distribute samples to its customer base to drum up business.

"We'll have a one-year runway," Ijaz said. "For the purpose of being able to do workforce development, getting our product into validation, getting the experience we need with our suppliers before the rest of the equipment comes to kick off the gigafactory."