The international expert organization DEKRA has officially opened its new Battery Test Center at the DEKRA Lausitzring in Brandenburg. The facility is now complete, just under 15 months after construction began. Dietmar Woidke, Minister-President of the German state of Brandenburg, and Guido Kutschera, Head of DEKRA Germany, officially inaugurated the center by symbolically flipping the switch at the opening ceremony.
The new center will enable rigorous testing of batteries, including those for electric vehicles, while also expanding DEKRA’s service portfolio for the automotive industry. In addition, the DEKRA Lausitzring location continues to grow with this latest development.
Dietmar Woidke, Minister-President of the German state of Brandenburg said:
Safe and reliable battery technologies are an industry of the future and strengthen the value chains of e-mobility in Brandenburg. DEKRA’s decision to make this investment here in Klettwitz underscores Brandenburg’s importance as an attractive, future-oriented business location and the appeal of Lusatia as an innovative energy region.
For Guido Kutschera, Executive Vice President of the DEKRA Group responsible for business in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, the new Battery Test Center is another important building block in DEKRA's strategy for inspection and testing services supporting the mobility of the future:
The site here in Klettwitz, like no other in the DEKRA Group, represents comprehensive vehicle testing before they go on the road – ensuring that everyone involved knows that the technology is safe. The fact that our customers from the automotive and supplier industries can find such a comprehensive range of services from a single source and in one place here is an important success factor, and that is precisely why we are opening the Battery Test Center not just anywhere in the world, but right here.
As a result, the DEKRA Lausitzring site is continuing its steady growth. Erik Pellmann, Head of the Automotive Test Center at DEKRA Automobil GmbH said:
When we took over the racetrack almost eight years ago, we had a total of 70 employees here at DEKRA. Today, we are a team of 290. In the Battery Test Center alone, we will ultimately have up to 40 skilled jobs.
Following the opening ceremony, Thomas Hucke, head of the new DEKRA Battery Test Center, gave politicians, guests, and media representatives a tour of the various sections of the facility. The state-of-the-art test center will offer a comprehensive spectrum of battery tests under one roof. In addition to mechanical tests, performance and environmental tests, there will also be abuse tests in which batteries are subjected to stresses far beyond their normal use. The safety standards at the new facility are correspondingly high. All services are offered both during development and in the context of homologation, certification, quality assurance, and market surveillance.
DEKRA operates a large number of highly specialized testing laboratories that specialize in automotive testing scenarios. With this network, DEKRA supports its customers worldwide in the most important target regions and invests significantly in expanding its service portfolio around future automotive trends, such as V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) communication, charging stations, driver assistance systems (ADAS), and open road services. The Battery Test Center ensures the highest standards of safety, efficiency, and performance for next-generation batteries. At the same time, it promotes innovation across the entire spectrum of the automotive industry and underscores DEKRA's commitment to advancing sustainable mobility and smarter energy solutions worldwide.
Source: DEKRA