by Gilles Guillaume
MUNICH (Germany), September 6 (Reuters) – Verkor should complete in the coming weeks the first tranche of the financing plan planned for its future battery gigafactory in Dunkirk (North), Philippe Chain, co-founder and director of Verkor, told Reuters. the customers of the Grenoble company.
This first tranche will be a capital injection of around 800 million euros, he added at the Munich motor show, followed by a debt tranche of around 1.1 billion euros. euros as well as subsidies for which Verkor has filed a file with the European authorities.
The Grenoble start-up is set to change dimension with its gigafactory, one of the four electric vehicle battery factories that the North of France will host.
It has already raised around 350 million euros, mainly for a new innovation center designed to accommodate more than 300 people spread between the head office, a pilot production line now in operation and a “battery school” intended to train for new electrification professions.
The gigatory, for which construction of the foundations has begun, must have an initial production capacity of 16 GWh per year – including 12 for Renault, a shareholder with more than 20% of Verkor. The start of production is planned for mid-2025.
The site, which could increase to 50 GWh of capacity in 2030, should enable the creation of 1,200 direct jobs and more than 3,000 indirect jobs by 2025.
The three other northern gigafactories are Automotive Cells Company (ACC), whose production in Douvrin will have started by the end of the year and which plans an initial capacity of 13 GWh, mainly for Stellantis and Mercedes, shareholders of ACC in alongside TotalEnergies.
Ultimately, the first of the gigafactories in this new “battery valley” could reach a total capacity of around 40 GWh.
This will be followed by Envision AESC, the Japanese subsidiary of the Chinese group Envision, which plans a capacity of 9 GWh in 2024 and 24 GWh by 2030 in Douai, notably for Renault’s future R5, and the Taiwanese ProLogium – 30 GWh in 2030 – at Dunkirk too. (Report by Gilles Guillaume, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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