MANUFACTURING

Clarios battery factory in Holland an innovator on lithium-ion production

Carolyn Muyskens
The Holland Sentinel
Workers place batteries into boxes from the cell assembly station Tuesday, June 14, 2022, at Clarios's Meadowbrook plant in Holland.

HOLLAND — While all eyes are on the high-voltage battery packs that power the electric vehicles automakers are betting big on, such as the ones made at LG Energy Solution's Holland plant, there is a second battery inside those cars — and it's also being made in Holland.

Clarios is producing lithium-ion low-voltage batteries at the Meadowbrook plant, 70 W. 48th St., for a global auto company. While high-voltage batteries make an electric car go, low-voltage batteries power other electronics in the car like the door locks, air-conditioning and the entertainment system, providing the power to keep them running when the high-voltage battery turns off.

"A lot of people forget that and miss that because there's so much energy around the high-voltage," said Jennifer Slater, vice president and general manager of original equipment and products for Clarios.

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The company also makes batteries for internal-combustion engine vehicles and supplies batteries to auto manufacturers and to aftermarket customers like auto parts stores and dealerships.

With multiple factories around the world and 16,000 employees, Clarios supplies the batteries for one in three vehicles on the road, the company said.

Temperature and air conditions are tightly controlled inside the plant in Holland to provide the most consistent atmosphere possible for what is essentially a chemistry experiment every single day.

The winding and cell assembly of batteries as they make their way through the plant Tuesday, June 14, 2022, at Clarios's Meadowbrook plant in Holland.

First, the active materials, such as lithium, are mixed into a "slurry," which is spread onto a gigantic sheet of foil, meters long, and the slurry is baked until it is solid.

Then, a machine slices up the baked electrode into smaller strips and the positive and negative electrode sheets are rolled up into a cell and injected with electrolyte and sealed. Finally, a process called formation activates the battery cell by causing chemical reactions.

The cell has to be charged and discharged over a period of several days before it is ready to be shipped.

Plant Manager Shelly Maciejewski shows off the components of batteries produced at Clarios Tuesday, June 14, 2022, at Clarios's Meadowbrook plant in Holland.

Lithium-ion cells from Holland are then shipped to factories in Hanover, Germany, and Shanghai, China, where they are assembled along with electronics and software into battery packs.

Every single cell produced in Holland contains a unique, trackable barcode. Company officials said that record is important so the company can easily trace any issues with a battery down the road.

The Meadowbrook plant has been manufacturing lithium-ion batteries since 2010, at the time under the name Johnson Controls.

Johnson Controls International sold its Power Solutions division, including the Holland battery plant, to private equity firm Brookfield Business Partners in 2019 and renamed the battery company, now a subsidiary of Brookfield Business Partners, Clarios. Clarios continues to be headquartered in Glendale, Wisc.

Clarios CEO Mark Wallace stands for a portrait in his company's Meadowbrook Plant Tuesday, June 14, 2022, at Clarios's Meadowbrook plant in Holland.

At a tour of the Meadowbrook plant Tuesday, CEO Mark Wallace said Clarios is poised to supply many electric vehicle models with low-voltage battery systems.

Low-voltage systems play an important safety role in electric and autonomous vehicles, Wallace noted, acting as a backup to computer systems and electronics such as power steering if the main battery malfunctions.

"When that car is going down the road and there is a problem with the high-voltage batteries, those batteries need to be shut down," Wallace said. "The low voltage network steps in and helps you get the vehicle safely to the side of the road. So the low-voltage network is playing a significantly higher level of functional safety onboard the vehicles of the future than we ever have in our past."

"Those vehicles needs are very different than what the needs are before," Slater added.

The Slitting station for batteries Tuesday, June 14, 2022, at Clarios's Meadowbrook plant in Holland.

Clarios is also developing technologies for recycling lithium-ion batteries. The company already has a system to recover up to 99 percent of the materials in lead-acid batteries in what it describes as a "closed-loop system." When the company sells a battery, it takes one back for recycling.

"We need to set that same policy and that same expectation when it comes to lithium-ion batteries in the future," said Craig Rigby, Clarios vice president for technology.

— Contact reporter Carolyn Muyskens at cmuyskens@hollandsentinel.com and follow her on Twitter at @cjmuyskens