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Amplify Battery Cell Manufacturing JV Faces More Delays
Daimler Truck Takes $235 Million Q1 Earnings Charge on Delays
Key Takeaways:
- Daimler Truck will take a 200 million euro ($235 million) impairment charge tied to delays at the Amplify Cell battery plant.
- Partners are deferring manufacturing capacity installation due to weaker EV truck and fuel cell market conditions.
- The Mississippi facility’s start of production had already been pushed to 2028 from 2027.
Amplify Cell Technologies’ planned battery cell production facility in Mississippi is facing more delays, one of the joint venture’s shareholders said May 6.
Freightliner and Western Star parent company Daimler Truck is one of three stakeholders alongside Kenworth and Peterbilt owner Paccar Inc. and Cummins’ Accelera division.
Daimler Truck CEO Karin Radstrom told analysts on the truck and bus maker’s first-quarter 2026 earnings call that it would take a 200 million euro, or $235 million, impairment charge as a result of delays to the project.
Weaker-than-expected conditions in the battery and fuel cell electric commercial vehicle market in North America mean the partners are deferring the installation of manufacturing capacity, the executive said.
Limited construction will continue to ensure the joint venture remains well-positioned for the future while maintaining flexibility as the market allows, she added.
Daimler Truck originally expected to spend a sum in the “low triple-digit-million range” on the project in 2026.
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Radstrom
Amplify expected the plant to cost $2 billion to $3 billion to build.
The project’s scheduled start of production already had been pushed back once, with Paccar revealing in October that manufacturing would begin in 2028 rather than 2027 as initially planned.
Until October, the partners had held fast publicly to a 2027 start date despite weaker-than-expected adoption rates for battery-electric trucks, the cratering of government support for infrastructure and the freight recession shrinking fleets’ capital expenditures.
A representative of Daimler Truck North America declined to say May 6 if the start of production had been pushed back further.
During its third-quarter 2025 earnings, Paccar said Amplify was making progress building the factory.
The partners announced plans for the battery manufacturing plant and joint venture in September 2023 before picking the Mississippi site in January 2024. Construction on the 2.6 million-square-foot battery factory in Byhalia, Miss., began in July 2024.
The site in Byhalia beat out 116 site submissions across 24 states, with six states making the long list and three the short list.
