This subsidy had not yet been officially announced because the French State and ProLogium were waiting for the formal green light from the European Commission to validate the aid from France. The Taiwanese decided to set up his first European battery factory in France and we suspected that there was a substantial public investment to help with the decision. This is the famous “reindustrialization” touted by the PR.
Public aid is officially aid for research, development and innovation. Why research and development? Because ProLogium must make solid electrolyte batteries there, a promising solution, but still in the research and production phase. The factory, which must produce 48 GWh of battery per year (hence the name gigafactory NDLA) represents an investment of 5.2 billion euros for ProLogium.
€125,000 subsidy per indirect job created
The subsidy will be spread over time, until 2029. A way to ensure that public money is not simply captured for no concrete result. If we know that “Dunkirk” is the anchor point of the project, it still remains to build the factory precisely. This should start from the second half of 2024. Production on its side should take place at the end of 2026.
For Dunkirk, this project is important. The factory should eventually create 3,000 direct and 12,000 indirect jobs. Above all, it is part of the “battery valley”. The Stellantis and Renault-Verkor factories are located not far from there. France wishes to attract electric vehicle players to the north of France, thanks to a favorable financial environment, public aid, but also carbon-free nuclear electricity which improves the ecological balance of batteries.
A notion of importance while France will introduce an “environmental score” for electric vehicles which will make it possible to trigger or not the granting of the electric bonus. ProLogium said it is also looking for a location for its research and development center. France is there too in the ranks.
Our opinion, by leblogauto.com
Public subsidies in the automobile are nothing new. There was Toyota Onnaing, for example, quite emblematic of state aid and local authorities to attract a factory. But French builders have also regularly benefited from aid for “regional development”. Often, it was so that the production of a vehicle would not be relocated abroad, or so that a factory would not close permanently.
But the amounts are disproportionate to that announced today. In 2018, Toyota received aid of two million euros from the Region to help Toyota recruit 140 employees to develop the Onnaing plant. For its part, Toyota invested 300 million in the factory to produce a new model in addition to the Yaris, and recruit 700 additional people (for 5000 in total).
These subsidies make it possible to “lower the cost of wages” and often to win the day when an industrial group seeks to establish itself. At the end of the day, these are direct and indirect jobs, an economic fabric preserved or revitalized. For a long time, it was considered that the State should not get involved in private industrial policy. From now on, it seems that we are trying to attract industries, and that’s good. Nuclear electricity is also an argument that speaks to manufacturers, but there is still a long way to go for reindustrialisation.
With its gigafactories, France should produce batteries for more vehicles than it produces annually. These batteries will either be exported elsewhere in Europe or will be used to attract new automobile production to our soil.
