The sector is expanding. The Japanese company Wscope has teamed up with the French Alteo to invest 600 million euros in a factory for battery separators for electric vehicles, the Ministry of Industry announced on Thursday. The factory is to be built in Hauts-de-France, according The New Factory. The exact location is to be announced in early 2023.
The two companies have signed an agreement for “the joint construction of the largest production site for battery separators for electric vehicles in Europe,” the ministry said in a statement.
Start of production in 2026
This agreement “will allow the two companies to finalize the assembly of the project and to validate the location of the French production site, with a clear desire to position themselves as close as possible to the gigafactories”, these three battery factories planned in the north of France. , according to the press release. The start of production is scheduled for 2026 and would involve the creation of “more than 1,000 direct jobs”, the ministry said.
The separators are key elements of the battery, placed between the anode (negative terminal where the oxidation reaction takes place which will supply the electrons) and the cathode (positive terminal where the reduction reaction takes place which will consume the electrons ).
Three gigafactories in Hauts-de-France
In northern France, Stellantis plans to build a battery factory in Douvrin, Pas-de-Calais, while Chinese battery giant AESC-Envision is set to move into Renault’s electrical hub, the “ElectriCity” in Hauts-de-France.
A third giga-factory is to be set up in Dunkirk, in the North, launched by the Grenoble start-up Verkor with the support of Renault, Schneider Electric and Arkema. A logical choice since the region brings together the three different battery factory projects in France.