Poland at the heart of BMZ’s e-bike battery business

Lithium-ion battery manufacturer BMZ Group has been establishing a foothold within the e-bike market since 2011. To solidify this position, the German company has expanded its e-bike operations in Poland, which has become a very important centre for the BMZ Group's global e-bike business. Considered its e-bike 'excellence centre,' Bike Europe visited the vast 77,000-square-metre location to find out more.

Founded in 1994 in Germany, BMZ Group opened a factory in Gliwice, Poland in 2010 to serve several product portfolios. This location in Gliwice now houses a strong representation of the Group’s e-bike team, from office staff to production.

One stop shop - Centralised e-bike activities

The Polish BMZ location integrates all processes from R&D, product management and testing related to e-bike batteries and drive systems as well as sales, production, supply chain management and after-sales service. The full e-bike team, including production staff, totals around 100 employees. “With all competences gathered in one location, this enables us to speed up the development and industrialisation processes, from prototyping to actually producing the battery systems in-house,” explains BMZ Poland’s Business Development Team Manager, Lech Winiowski.

The Polish location, in cooperation with other BMZ Group production sites (for e-bike products this is mainly in North Macedonia and Germany), serves as a logistics hub for the European e-bike market. From Poland, e-bike batteries and drives are shipped to e-bike assembling factories in Europe, as well as North and South America. The site also serves as an important part of the BMZ European service centres network.

Mass production in-house

BMZ Poland has an annual capacity of 200,000 e-bike batteries. The company has many modern production lines with varying degrees of automation - depending on the requirements of each product. “Most of our e-bike batteries are produced on semi-automatic production lines. This is one of our advantages in a market that requires us to be flexible and respond quickly to customer needs,” explains Winiowski.

“Production flexibility gives us the possibility of cooperation with customers who require premium, customised products but with lower quantities. We are growing with our customers' needs. We are gradually increasing process automation when it is justified, although we tend to automate some operations – such as welding – across all production lines.”

BMZ’s two side-by-side plants within Katowice’s special economic zone (SEZ) span a huge production area of almost 17,000 square metres. Combined, these plants have 67 production lines (a mix of fully automatic, semi-automatic and manual) for the production of a diverse product portfolio, which includes e-bike batteries. This location currently employs around 900 people in total. A third plant is now under construction and will add another 5,550 square metres of production capacity for BMZ in Poland. This new plant will concentrate on the production of batteries for electric buses.

After entering the e-bike market as a battery systems supplier in 2011, the BMZ Group has since extended its activities to e-bike drive systems (both as an own motor provider and e-drive systems integrator in cooperation with global motor producers). Originally with a strong client base in the DACH countries, this has grown to other key European markets, including the Netherlands. The battery manufacturer has collaborated with many large bicycle brands, including Kellys, Rotwild, Head, Kross, Romet, Bulls, Van Raam, Kalkhoff, Sense, Brompton, Norco, Devinci and Kettler. The batteries themselves are compatible with a multitude of e-bike drive systems, such as Shimano, Panasonic, DJI, Motinova, Brose, Bafang and Oli eBike Systems.

Cell supply

In 2015, BMZ Group founder Sven Bauer established the high-quality cylindrical battery cells provider TerraE. Although European cell production has proven more challenging, TerraE define’s specifications for battery cells, which are manufactured accordingly on existing lines by tier-one suppliers in Asia under the brand TerraE. This initiative gives BMZ customers (including e-bike manufacturers) the opportunity to use the latest battery technologies that guarantee the best energy density (capacity per 1 kg of battery).

“The BMZ Group cooperation with TerraE gives us access to the best battery cells technology, market independence and security against the turbulences of global logistics chains,” explains Winiowski. “The development of battery cells continues to be faster and we would like to take part in this. The majority of battery cells used in Europe are produced in Asia. Thanks to the TerraE initiative, we influence the development of these cells and that gives BMZ Group customers an extra element of safety and the best capacity on the market.”

Focus on being a European product

BMZ is producing both off-the-shelf and customised (incl. ODM or OEM) battery solutions through its vertically integrated structure. “We are managing the e-bike products from the beginning to the end. So not only the final production, but also the European suppliers of the parts and the recycling. We focus heavily on using European parts wherever possible, based on European quality with European development.”

In addition, BMZ aims to stay ahead of all regulatory changes in the e-bike industry. This included developing an in-house e-bike dedicated BMS in compliance with the newly enforced battery regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1542). “Given that the product life cycle in the e-bike market has been somewhat extended (partly due to products from previous seasons still in stock), we strive to ensure that our products are ahead of the EU regulations in terms of compliance. By purchasing our batteries, customers can be assured that they will be able to be introduced to the market even after major changes such as single-cell exchangeability and the battery passport requirements come into force,” concludes Winiowski.