Our Subsequent Vitality Inc. has landed a cope with Shyft Group Inc. to provide the supply automobile producer with lithium iron phosphate batteries at a Michigan plant.
Value greater than $200 million in income, the settlement requires the Michigan-based startup battery producer to provide Shyft with 15,000 battery packs for Class 3-5 vans over the subsequent 5 years, ONE introduced Thursday. Shyft was previously often called Spartan Motors.
It’s the second largest deal introduced by ONE when it comes to income potential, behind its settlement to provide vitality storage merchandise to Berkshire Hathaway Vitality’s solar-powered manufacturing hub in West Virginia.
ONE CEO Mujeeb Ijaz instructed Crain’s Detroit Enterprise, an affiliate of Automotive Information, that the Shyft deal is a crucial step ahead for its automotive enterprise.
“Shyft has a really lengthy historical past of growing merchandise that the market cares about, and we consider their section management is sort of deep,” Ijaz mentioned. “Partnering with a Michigan firm simply makes our present ecosystem that a lot stronger.”
The batteries will provide Shyft’s Blue Arc, a brand new line of electrical last-mile-delivery automobiles. The corporate declined to specify clients, however its largest purchasers embody Amazon Inc. and FedEx Corp.
It additionally has an preliminary order of two,000 electrical automobiles from North Carolina-based Randy Marion Automotive Group. The lack of defunct Electrical Final Mile Options is Shyft’s acquire. Marion had positioned an order of 1,000 models from Troy-based ELMS earlier than the corporate crumbled, and Mullen Automotive Inc. absorbed its belongings.
ONE will produce a brand new variation of its 79kWh Aries battery for Shyft’s Class 5 truck. ONE is dividing the battery into two 62 kWh segments and double stacking them for 248 kWh and 540 volts. The corporate mentioned the versatile configuration permits for higher vitality effectivity and extra discretion over learn how to use automobile storage capability, a key concern for supply automobiles.
LFP batteries don’t include nickel or cobalt — parts which are problematic for his or her restricted provide and origins. The chemistry presents much less vary than the present trade normal NMC (nickel, manganese, cobalt), however LFP is good for last-mile supply automobiles which are ceaselessly charged. Shyft’s different battery provider, California-based Proterra, makes NMC batteries.
Shyft joins Berkshire Hathaway, Motiv and Bollinger Motors, additionally acquired by Mullen final yr, as ONE clients which were introduced.
ONE’s industrial automobile batteries are being produced in a Piston Group plant in Van Buren Township close to ONE’s deliberate $1.6 billion plant, which can make batteries for passenger automobiles.
Manufacturing for the Shyft batteries is to start on the finish of the month. The corporate introduced final month that it will make investments $16 million at its plant in Charlotte, MIch., to construct EVs.
“We really feel very assured within the product’s capacity to perform of their system as a result of we have now been driving their automobiles in metro Detroit for months,” Ijaz mentioned.