Ola Electric building EV cell R&D facility in Bengaluru with $500 mn investment

Ola Electric is looking to achieve bigger goals each time and the company's CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has taken to Twitter to share that the EV start-up is establishing one of world's largest state-of-the-art Battery Innovation Center (BIC) in Bengaluru. With an investment of $500 million, the company's most advanced cell R&D facility will employ over 500 engineers & PhDs, and will be up and running by next month.

Aggarwal also shared a video clip along with the announcement, which gives details about the upcoming cell innovation facility, which will become the largest cell R&D facility in Asia. The video gives a virtual glimpse into how will the facility look. It will have a Physical Characteristics Lab, X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Machine (XPS) to perform quality checks on the raw materials procured for cell production.

A Cell Protoline Lab RH 10 will also be a part of the facility, making Ola Electric the first company in the country to manufacture electrodes for Lithium-ion (NMC) cells. A Double Planetary Mixer will help prepare the slurry for cathodes and anodes of lithium-ion cells while a Lab Slot Die Coater will be used to coat the slurry onto the current collector.

A Cell Protoline Lab RH 1 will act as an automated assemble line for manufacturing both Cylindrical and Pouch Cells. A Cylindrical Cell Assembly Protoline will consist of a Tab Welding and Winding unit, Grooving unit, Positive Tab Laser Welding Unit, Electrolyte Filling, and a Crimping Unit.

A Pouch Cell Assembly Protoline will get Electrode Cutting Unit, Automatic Cell Z Fold Stacking Unit, Tab Welding Unit, Pouch Blister Forming Unit, Cell Filling and Degassing Unit, and Pouch Sealing Unit. The facility will also have a Computed Tomography (CT) - a non-destructive technique for visualizing internal features of finished cells.

Earlier this month, the company unveiled its first-ever indigenously developed lithium-ion battery cell.