The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire during his visit to the Automotive Cells Company (ACC) factory, in Billy-Berclau in Pas-de-Calais, May 30, 2023 (POOL/AFP/PASCAL ROSSIGNOL)
France inaugurated on Tuesday in Pas-de-Calais the first factory producing batteries for electric cars on its soil, a key step towards a profound industrial metamorphosis aimed at catching up with Chinese manufacturers.
“For the first time since Airbus, France and Europe are creating a new industrial sector”, rejoiced the Minister of the Economy Bruno Lemaire, on the site of Automotive Cells Company (ACC), a joint venture of Stellantis, TotalEnergies and Mercedes.
In industrial matters, “the European Union must show its muscles” while “China will not give us any gifts”, he underlined.
For the German Minister of Digital Affairs and Transport, Volker Wissing, “this plant, together with the two other ACCs planned in Germany and Italy, contributes to ensuring that Europe will still be at the forefront of global progress tomorrow”. in the face of Chinese competition and climate change.
“The battery produced here will emit 40% less CO2 per megawatt hour than the same produced in China”, for his part put forward the CEO of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné.
The CEOs of Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, and Mercedes, Ola Kallenius, were also present in Billy-Berclau for the inauguration of this “gigafactory”, an impressive site 640 meters long and 100 meters wide.
– “Battery Valley” –
Huge connected machines will flatten, cut, stack aluminum sheets coated with a paste of rare minerals, the base of these battery cells, which will then be assembled and filled with electrolyte by workers in white coats in immaculate rooms.
The CEO of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, at the Automotive Cells Company (ACC) factory in Billy-Berclau, May 30, 2023 (POOL/AFP/PASCAL ROSSIGNOL)
Production should start in the summer and marketing at the end of 2023.
The automotive sector is preparing with the backing of public aid for a forced shift towards electrification, accelerated by the ban on internal combustion engines in the European Union from 2035.
The ACC group will be one of the first to produce in Europe. It will be followed by three other battery factories in France, all located in Hauts-de-France, where an ecosystem is emerging that elected officials and industrialists have called “Battery Valley”.
The Sino-Japanese group AESC-Envision, near Douai (North) intends to supply Renault Electricity from the beginning of 2025, the Grenoble start-up Verkor will produce from mid-2025 in Dunkirk, and the Taiwanese group ProLogium aims to enter production at the end of 2026 for its first factory abroad.
In total, about fifty projects of this type have been announced on a European scale in recent years, so as not to leave Europe at the mercy of Asian suppliers, and particularly Chinese ones, who are 10 to 20 years ahead in this domain.
– “Social breakage” –
The French government has set itself the goal of producing two million electric vehicles per year in the country by 2030, underlines Bercy. The ACC site alone should by this date produce enough to equip 500,000 vehicles each year.
Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire during his visit to the Automotive Cells Company (ACC) factory in Billy-Berclau on May 30, 2023 (POOL/AFP/PASCAL ROSSIGNOL)
France intends to supply its automotive industry with enough batteries assembled in the country by 2027, and even export some thereafter. But it remains handicapped by the price of its energy, compared to China or the United States, which massively subsidize this industry.
A sign of public support, out of the seven billion euros of investment needed for the ACC project, the group has received more than 1.2 billion in public funds, including 845 million euros in French aid.
The lithium-ion technology used on the first line of ACC remains, however, greedy in strategic metals whose supply chain is largely dominated by China – lithium, nickel or manganese.
Rally at the call of the CGT to protest against the closure of the Stellantis site in Douvrin, May 30, 2023 in Douvrin (AFP / DENIS CHARLET)
The transition also represents a major social challenge, with the announced disappearance of tens of thousands of jobs according to unions and employers’ organisations, while the Battery Valley must recruit and train more than 20,000 people in a few years.
Behind a banner “no to closing, demand the maintenance of our jobs at PSA Douvrin”, a hundred people also demonstrated Tuesday in the center of Douvrin at the call of the CGT of the local site Stellantis, neighbor of ACC and dedicated to closure, denouncing against the “social breakdown” linked to electrification.
© 2023 AFP
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