The service is based on the Automotive RailNet. "We respond flexibly to our customers with standardised and proven processes for battery transport," explains Sören Labyk, Account Manager at DB Cargo Logistics. "The plug-and-play approach plays an important role here because it allows new transports to be connected to the existing network quickly and easily."
From the cell module manufacturer's warehouse in Magdeburg, the cell modules are transported by truck to the port of Magdeburg. On arrival at the port of Magdeburg, the lithium-ion cell modules are transhipped, protected from the weather, prepared for shipment by rail and loaded onto sliding wall wagons. From there, the wagons are taken directly to the Škoda plant in Mladá Boleslav, 370 kilometres away. Here, the batteries for electric vehicles are fully assembled and either installed directly in the Škoda vehicles produced there or transported by rail to the Volkswagen plant in Emden.
At present, up to three wagons a day travel to the Czech Republic. In the future, this could increase to more than ten wagons a day. The significance of this figure becomes particularly clear when compared with the number of truck journeys saved. A freight wagon can carry up to 64 tonnes of payload, two and a half times more than a truck. In addition, the sliding-wall wagons can be optimally utilised thanks to specially developed battery racks. Three freight wagons per day means a saving of eight truck loads, an important step towards a CO2-neutral supply chain for cell module transport.
