The first factory to produce batteries for electric cars in France was inaugurated on Tuesday in Billy-Berclau in the north of the country. This is an important step towards a deep industrial metamorphosis aimed at catching up with Chinese manufacturers.
“This is the first time in decades that we have created an industrial sector in France almost from scratch,” stresses Bercy.
And the factory of the joint venture Automotive CellS Company (ACC) by Stellantis, Total and Mercedes is “the first visible building block”.
Huge networked machines flatten, cut and stack sheets of aluminum coated with a paste of rare minerals, the base of these battery cells, which are then assembled and filled with electrolyte by white-coated workers in immaculate rooms.
Production is scheduled to start in the summer and commercialization at the end of 2023.
French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire is expected in Billy-Berclau together with Energy Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Industry Minister Roland Lescure and Italian and German officials.
The CEOs of Mercedes, Stellantis and TotalEnergies will also be present at the ceremonial inauguration of this “Gigafactory” with truly gigantic proportions: 640 meters long, 100 meters wide.
The moment is solemn as it symbolizes the forced march of the automotive sector towards electrification with the support of public funds to prepare for the 2035 ban on internal combustion engines in the European Union.
The ACC Group, which sees itself as the “Airbus of the battery”, will be one of the first to produce in Europe.
Four more battery factories follow in France, all in the Hauts-de-France region, creating an ecosystem that elected officials and industrialists have dubbed “Battery Valley.”
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The Sino-Japanese group AESC-Envision near Douai wants to supply Renault Electricity from early 2025, the Grenoble start-up Verkor wants to produce in Dunkirk from mid-2025 and the Taiwanese group ProLogium wants to start production there at the end of 2026. for its first factory abroad.
A total of around fifty projects of this type have been announced at European level in recent years.
The stakes are high: not to leave Europe at the mercy of Asian suppliers, especially the Chinese, who are 10 to 20 years ahead in this area.
The French government has set itself the goal of producing two million electric vehicles per year in France by 2030, the Ministry of Economy emphasizes and estimates that by this date ACC alone should produce enough to equip 500,000 vehicles per year.
France wants to supply its automotive industry with enough domestically assembled batteries by 2027 – and then even export French batteries.
However, compared to China or the United States, which heavily subsidize this industry, the country remains disadvantaged by energy prices.
Signs of public support for the seven billion euros of investment representing the various ACC sites – in addition to their factory in Billy-Berclau, a research center in Charente (West) and two future factories planned in Germany and Italy – the Group has received more than 1.2 billion public funds, including 845 million euros in French aid.
But the lithium-ion technology used in the first ACC line remains greedy for strategic metals whose supply chain is largely dominated by China – lithium, nickel or manganese.
The transition also poses a major social challenge, as unions and employers’ organizations have announced the announced loss of tens of thousands of jobs, while Battery Valley will need to hire and train more than 20,000 people in a few years.
Also, the CGT union of the Stellantis site in Douvrin, a neighbor of ACC that is doomed to close, has also planned to demonstrate on Tuesday morning against the “social harm” linked to electrification.