Akasol AG is a German manufacturer of batteries for

electric vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes cha ...

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 th ...

. A manufacturing site in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

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

BorgWarner BorgWarner Inc. is an American automotive supplier headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The company maintains production facilities and technical systems at 93 sites (as of June 6, 2022) in 22 countries worldwide and has around 49,000 emplo ...

History

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

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

'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 which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also se ...

and an

electric car An electric car, battery electric car, or all-electric car is an automobile that is propelled by one or more electric motors, using only energy stored in batteries. Compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, electric cars are quie ...

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.

References

2008 establishments in Germany Publicly traded companies Companies based in Hesse Battery manufacturers {{Germany-company-stub