The birth of a new European battery manufacturing player

Yann Vincent, Executive Vice President, Industrial Director of Groupe PSA, has been appointed Chief Executive in order to implement and develop the new company. With this partnership, the parties are setting up a new battery player in Europe and aims to manufacture high-performance batteries for the automotive industry from 2023. Total/Saft will contribute its expertise in R&D and industrialisation, and Groupe PSA its knowledge of the automotive market and its experience in production. The R&D centre in Bordeaux and the pilot site in Nersac (France) have already started in order to develop the new lithium-ion technologies. At the end of this R&D phase, mass production could be launched in two "gigafactories", in Douvrin (France) and Kaiserslautern (Germany), a press release reads. With this JV, the companies involved aims to produce batteries for electric vehicles that will be at the highest technological level in terms of energy performance, autonomy, recharging time and carbon footprint. The project also aims at developing production capacity, essential to accompany the growth demand for electric vehicles in a European market estimated at 400 GWh by 2030, in other words 15 times the current market. This project is benefiting from the financial support of French and German public authorities representing EUR 1.3 billion. The whole project will mobilise an investment more than EUR 5 billion investment, the press release continues.