EV Battery Manufacturer Our Next Energy Opens New Headquarters in Novi

Electric vehicle battery manufacturer Our Next Energy (ONE) officially opened its new headquarters in Novi Thursday with a ribbon cutting attended by several corporate, state, and local officials.

The new headquarters is home to ONE’s business operations and engineering teams. Corporate functions including supply chain, procurement, IT, finance, and HR also will be operated out of the campus. The lobby of the building houses a collection of electric vehicle historical artifacts, where the origins of electrification in Detroit can be explored by guests.

“Michigan offers an exceptional talent pool and ideal location to collaborate with customers and suppliers as we advance towards U.S.-based cell manufacturing,” says Mujeeb Ijaz, founder and CEO of ONE. “Our Novi headquarters play a critical role in building our future here in Michigan.”

The new facility is designed to enhance ONE’s product development and validation capabilities by co-locating cell, battery pack, battery management systems (BMS), manufacturing, and administrative functions in one place, allowing for fully vertically integrated product development.

ONE was founded in 2020, according to the company, with the mission to double the distance electric vehicles can travel using safer, more sustainable materials. ONE states it uses safe, sustainable, low-cost battery chemistries for consumer and commercial electric vehicles, in addition to developing technology for stationary storage — particularly around utility-scale energy storage systems.

The company says it’s dedicated to the long-term vision of achieving vertical integration for American energy storage manufacturing by working to develop a robust and resilient domestic supply chain for critical minerals.

Thursday’s ribbon cutting served as a preview of ONE’s next major project — a $1.6 billion battery manufacturing campus in Van Buren Township that will create 2,112 jobs, announced earlier this month.

The ONE Circle factory will be ONE’s first cell and EV battery pack Gigafactory. ONE is partnering with Ashley Capital to locate this inaugural factory in the Crossroads Distribution Center, where it will establish a state-of-the-art, 659,589-square-foot facility.

The company says it will use a newly developed cell factory model for this project with an emphasis on developing a North American raw material supply chain and a co-located material refinement strategy. The campus plans to scale to 20 GWh capacity within five years, and will include raw material refinement, cathode materials production, as well as cell and battery manufacturing.

“This project builds on many decades of talent and infrastructure investments by our great state and local communities,” says Christopher Girdwood, CEO of the Detroit Region Aerotropolis Development Corp.

Maureen Donohue Krauss, president and CEO of the Detroit Regional Partnership, says: “The Detroit Region continues to serve as the global epicenter for mobility innovation. Up and down the supply chain, from startups to mid-size companies to Fortune 500 OEMs, the Detroit Region is home to pioneers like Our Next Energy who continue to push the envelope on cutting-edge battery, EV, and advanced mobility technologies.”