Manufacturing & Supply Chain

REE Automotive, a manufacturer of rolling chassis for commercial electronic vehicles, plans to build a highly automated assembly plant in the UK to supply customers in Europe. The Israeli-based startup said the manufacturing facility will be completed this year in partnership with Rockwell Automation and Expert Technologies, which will provide robotics and automated assembly.

REE will make use of technologies from Plex, a Rockwell Automation company, to underpin its cloud-based manufacturing operations for its highly digitalized EV platform. The Plex Manufacturing Execution System (MES) platform will be rolled out at REE Automotive’s integration center at Coventry, which will have an initial capacity of 10,000 vehicle sets this year. The North American Integration Center in Austin, Texas, is expected to double global capacity to 20,000 vehicle sets in 2023 by replicating the highly automated cloud-based architecture of its European sibling.

“The automotive industry is evolving,” said Malte Dieckelmann, regional vice president, software sales, EMEA, Rockwell Automation, “and a complete ecosystem is needed to enable and accelerate commercial vehicle electrification. REE is here to lead the industry with a turnkey solution and mission-specific vehicles for greater fleet efficiencies.”