France: ACC inaugurates first electric car battery factory
Full capacity factory ACC will produce 40GWh of car batteries per year
France marks a point in favor of the European energy transition. This morning in Billy-Berclau, in the Hauts-de-France region, the Automotive Cells Company (ACC) inaugurated the country’s first electric car battery factory. A gigafactory worth 850 million euros, which sees the light just 2 and a half years after the foundation of the company by Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz and TotalEnergies.
The structure will be only the first of a larger plan that also involves Italy and Germany. This is why the inauguration of the gigafactory ACC was attended by French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire and colleagues from the Energy Transition and Industry, as well as German and Italian officials. “Today batteries account for about 40% of the total cost of an electric vehicle and are mostly produced in Asia,” commented the company’s CEO Yann Vincent. “Through the new Billy-Berclau Gigafactory (the first in France), we are proud to realize our ambition to become one of the European leaders in the production of innovative and low-carbon batteries”.
Inside the Gigafactory ACC of France
The French gigafactory will produce cells and modules for lithium-ion batteries using a combination of radically new processes and proven materials in ACC’s research and development center. The production scale, the company stresses, allows the creation of products with the best ratio of stored energy, battery weight and cost. The plant has over 60,000 m2 of production space, with a first line of over 13 GWh per year that will be activated by the end of 2023. In detail, the factory of batteries for electric cars will produce 56,000 cells per day and 2.4 million modules per year. A figure that will suffice to equip with accumulations from 200,000 to 300,000 e-cars depending on the model.
But the goal is to reach a production capacity of 40 GWh in 2030, creating two more production units on site. “At ACC, we are developing a new generation of sustainable and efficient batteries. These are fast, safe and affordable charging units that will open your eyes to new ways of considering electric vehicles”.
The sustainability of the electric car battery factory
Obviously the plant has been built following the latest standards in terms of safety and environmental management to reduce up to 10 times the industrial water consumption and lead to recycling 90% of the waste generated. ACC also undertakes to procure the strategic materials that make up its batteries (cobalt, lithium, copper or even nickel) from exemplary suppliers in terms of respect for the environment and human rights, and actively contribute to the development of the sectors necessary for recycling.
With the creation of two more Gigafactory in Kaiserslautern (Germany) in 2025 and Termoli (Italy) in 2026, ACC will reach 120 GWh at full industrial capacity by 2030.
