Major oil player gets into European EV battery market

Groupe PSA and Total create ‘Automotive Cells Company’, a joint venture dedicated to the manufacturing of batteries in Europe from 2023.

Groupe PSA/Opel and Total/Saft have signed an agreement for the creation of the joint venture Automotive Cells Company (ACC). The foundation of ACC marks the birth of a major player in battery production in Europe from 2023.

Yann Vincent has been appointed Chief Executive in order to implement and develop ACC, and Ghislain Lescuyer has been appointed Chairman of the Board.

Total/Saft will contribute its expertise in R&D and industrialization, and Groupe PSA its knowledge of the automotive market and its experience in production. The R&D centre in Bordeaux and the pilot site in Nersac (France) have already started in order to develop the new lithium-ion technologies. At the end of this R&D phase, mass production could be launched in two "gigafactories", in Douvrin (France) and Kaiserslautern (Germany).

“Our ambition is to leverage the recognized expertise of our subsidiary SAFT in batteries and the industrial know-how of our partner PSA to meet the strong growth of electric vehicles in Europe,” said Chairman of Total, Patrick Pouyanné.

“The construction of the European battery consortium that we wished for is now a reality,” declared Chariman of Groupe PSA, Carlos Tavares.

This project benefits from the financial support of French and German public authorities representing €1.3 billion. The whole project will mobilize an investment more than €5 billion investment.