- They have formed a new company named Automotive Cell Company as a part of this tie-up
- The joint venture will start with the establishment of a pilot plant on the land where Saft’s Nersac facility is located
Total has partnered with Saft, PSA Group and Opel to form a new company named Automotive Cell Company to accelerate the development of electric vehicle batteries. This new company will require up to €5 billion to produce up to one million batteries a year.
The joint venture will start with the establishment of a pilot plant on the land where Saft’s Nersac facility is located. It will require €200 million and it is expected that it will generate around 200 high-skilled jobs in France’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine region from mid-2021. The project will develop up to 8GWh of lithium-ion battery capacity initially. This will rise to 24GWh afterward.
French, German and European Union authorities to provide funding
The partnership aims to produce EV batteries with the highest level of energy performance in terms of range and charging time. It also aims to produce a lower carbon footprint than the competition. French, German and European Union authorities have promised up to nearly €1.3 billion in public funding for the project.
Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of Total, said that in 2015, the company had set the ambition to become the responsible energy major. It acquired Saft in 2016 primarily to develop energy storage to support the growth of intermittent renewable energies like solar and wind.
