Ioncor consolidates its German operations in Kirchardt

Ioncor says it’s moving its battery testing centre from Bad Friedrichshall to Kirchardt in the next six months and has sold the site. The company already has a production facility in Kirchardt, not far from Heilbronn. The move will bring engineering, testing and production under one roof. In future, Ioncor will therefore only operate one site in Germany, in addition to its two sites in Salo and Uusikaupunki in Finland.

However, Ioncor will not be relocating the test centre on a one-to-one basis. “The consolidation includes the sale of a share of IONCOR’s testing assets from the Bad Friedrichshall site to Electric Sphere, a dedicated, independent spin-off company specializing in battery testing,” the Finnish company announced. Employees in the test facility will either transfer to Electric Sphere or continue their work at Ioncor in Kirchardt. Once relocated, the new battery test centre in Kirchardt will “serve IONCOR’s internal requirements and support its product strategy, which focuses on proprietary battery systems for bus, truck, and off-highway segments,” according to the company. For additional flexibility, “Ioncor will continue to use external testing services, including those provided by Electric Sphere”, the company emphasises.

“This move creates a strong foundation for the future through a site that advances our strategy for heavy-duty OEM batteries and aligns our capacity with market needs. It’s also a solution that serves both IONCOR and Electric Sphere, fostering innovation and cooperation toward sustainable mobility,” said Ioncor CEO Roberts Abele.

According to a company statement, the test centre in Bad Friedrichshall was built between 2017 and 2024 and has 19 employees, 5,000 square metres of operating space, ten battery test benches and its own battery logistics centre. Ioncor focused on building up expertise in the field of battery cell, module and system development here.

The buyer of the centre is Electric Sphere, a subsidiary of Sommer Holding GmbH based in Bad Friedrichshall, which was newly founded in July 2025. Electric Sphere states that it focuses on electrification in various markets and that it acquired the centre on 1 November. “As a new company building on IONCOR’s proven expertise in battery testing and engineering, Electric Sphere combines experience with entrepreneurial agility,” commented Stefan Sommer, Managing Director of Electric Sphere. “This step gives us the independence to grow while maintaining cooperation with IONCOR to drive innovation and meet the rapidly evolving needs of the battery industry.”

Under Electric Sphere, the test centre in Bad Friedrichshall aims to position itself in the market as a test partner with development expertise and support customers in overcoming electrification hurdles. In addition to the existing functional and service life tests for batteries, the facility is to focus more on battery safety tests as well, as Electric Sphere announced.

Meanwhile, Ioncor is busy with its ongoing restructuring. This is because the Finnish government has identified the company’s expertise in the battery system sector as a major added value. In view of the tense geopolitical situation with a 1,300-kilometre-long direct border with Russia, Finland has therefore recently announced the partial nationalisation of Ioncor and its supplier and contract manufacturer Valmet Automotive.

The two companies are closely related, as Ioncor is Valmet’s battery business, which was spun off in 2024. Through several transactions, the state now has a say in both entities: 79 per cent of Valmet will be state-owned in future. At Ioncor, 70 per cent will soon be held by the state-owned Finnish Minerals Group. The remaining ownership is shared between Varma (16 per cent) and Pontos (14 per cent). In addition, the state has committed to investing around €20 million in new capital in Ioncor.

Last year, Valmet decided to make its three business areas more independent from each other. This led to the creation of Ioncor as an independent subsidiary for the battery system business, alongside the parent company’s traditional contract manufacturing business and RKS (Roof & Kinematic Systems), which focuses on roof and kinematic systems and operates in Poland and Germany. Incidentally, RKS’s business activities are to remain unaffected by the new ownership structure.

Ioncor, meanwhile, is now set to become an “integral part of the Finnish battery value chain” and strengthen the investment portfolio of the state-owned Finnish Minerals Group (FMG), “particularly downstream along the value chain in battery system R&D and production,” as was stated in September. Roberts Abele remains CEO of the battery company.

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This article was first published by Cora Werwitzke for electrive’s German edition.