From 18 February 2027 the product passport becomes mandatory for industrial batteries above 2 kWh, EV and LMT batteries. A passport cannot be assembled from a spreadsheet after the fact — it needs product genealogy captured by the MES while the goods are being made. Here is which data has to be linked, which standards now govern it (EN 18219, EN 18220), and what a mid-sized factory can realistically finish in five months.

On 18 February 2027 the Digital Product Passport obligation goes live for industrial batteries above 2 kWh and EV batteries (Regulation 2023/1542). Five and a half months is not much time — OEM suppliers (Volkswagen, Stellantis, BMW) are already, from August 2026, asking sub-suppliers for MES-side data readiness. This piece gathers what the DPP must contain in detail, the role of MES in that structure, lessons from the first 12 EU pilots (Battery Pass Consortium, Circulor/Volvo, ACC, Verkor), and a concrete 5.5-month roadmap for a European battery plant.

On 18 February 2027 the battery passport becomes mandatory for EV batteries, industrial batteries above 2 kWh, and LMT batteries — the first concrete moment when the Digital Product Passport (DPP) turns from EU concept into a hard production requirement. For an MES, this means exposing roughly seventeen attributes per unit: material origin, carbon footprint, recycled content, batch ID, durability, cell health data. This article walks through ESPR (2024/1781) and the Battery Regulation (2023/1542) without fluff: which MES functions already produce the data, what is missing, how to wire it up architecturally with GS1 Digital Link, and what to do in the nine months left before the deadline.