Akasol AG is a German manufacturer of batteries for

electric vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a motor vehicle whose propulsion is powered fully or mostly by electricity. EVs encompass a wide range of transportation modes, including road vehicle, road and rail vehicles, electric boats and Submersible, submer ...

s. Akasol was founded in 2008. Its headquarters and main manufacturing site are located in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

. A manufacturing site in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

was opened in 2019. In 2021, the company was acquired by the American automotive supplier

BorgWarner BorgWarner Inc. is an American automotive and Electric vehicle, e-mobility supplier headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. As of 2023, the company maintains production facilities and sites at 92 locations in 24 countries, and generates revenu ...

History

The Company emerged from a solar technology team founded in 1989 at the

Darmstadt University of Technology Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

's Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. The student team developed a number of solar and battery driven cars, aiming at low energy consumption. In 2008, members of the team founded the ''Akasol Engineering GmbH'', a for-profit company for developing

Lithium-ion batteries A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energy ...

and an

electric car An electric car or electric vehicle (EV) is a passenger car, passenger automobile that is propelled by an electric motor, electric traction motor, using electrical energy as the primary source of propulsion. The term normally refers to a p ...

suitable for everyday use. The name was changed to Akasol GmbH in 2012. In June 2018 the company went public as Akasol AG. Starting from June 2021,

took over a majority of Akasol. In August 2021, a factory with 15,000 m², called "Gigafactory 1" went operational in Darmstadt. Production capacity is up to 1 GWh during the first stage, and by 2022 is planned to increase to 2.5 GWh.{{Cite web , title=Gigafactory eröffnet - omnibus.news , url=https://omnibus.news/gigafactory-eroeffnet , access-date=2022-11-08 , language=de-DE

References

2008 establishments in Germany Publicly traded companies of Germany Companies based in Hesse Battery manufacturers