Group Renault has made a deal with battery manufacturer Verkor from Grenoble to buy the bulk – the equivalent of 12 GWh of a total capacity of 16 GWh – of its Dunkirk gigafactory’s production from 2025. That will allow Renault to equip between 130 000 and 200 000 electric vehicles annually.

Renault Group is a shareholder in the French industrial company Verkor. It joined existing shareholders EIT InnoEnergy, Groupe IDEC, Schneider Electric, and Capgemini, with a stake of over 20%. One of the first Renault subbrands to get the Verkor battery is the 100% electric Alpine C-Crossover GT, to be built in nearby Dieppe (France).

 2,5 billion investment

Grenoble-based industrial start-up Verkor announced in February 2022 it would build France’s third battery Gigafactory in Dunkirk. The foundation stone for the 500 000 m² plant should be laid in 2023, and the first high-performance, low-carbon battery should be delivered by 2025.

Production capacity is planned to rise from 16 to 50 GWh by 2030. Renault will initially be the biggest client taking 12 GWh of the 16 GWh in 2025. This €2,5 billion investment should bring the region 1 200 jobs and 3 000 indirect employments.

Second battery factory at Douai

Renault will also have another battery factory up its sleeve in northern France. The Japanese battery manufacturer Envision AESC, part of the Chinese Envision Group, is going to build a battery factory at Renault’s Douai site, rebaptized as ElectriCity.

This plant will offer an annual production capacity of 24 GWh by 2027 and 43 GWh by 2030 in several expansion stages. Initially, a more modest 9 GWh is foreseen. According to a report by the French authority Commission Nationale du débat public (CNDP), of the total capacity of 43 GWh, a good half or 24 GWh will be reserved for future Renault electric models such as the electric Renault 5. The investment volume is said to amount to around 2 billion euros.

A hundred kilometers further to the south, in Douvrin, France’s first giga-battery plant should be inaugurated end of May of this year by joint partners Stellantis, TotalEnergies, and Mercedes. The latter announced in March last year it acquired a third of the Automotive Cells Company (ACC) shares as an equal partner in the joint venture.