France extends a warm welcome to EV battery factories

ProLogium chose the northern French port of Dunkirk as the location for its first EV battery gigafactory outside Taiwan, according to French President Macron.

The factory is one of four proposed gigafactories President Macron envisions to transform an impoverished, former coal mining region into a hub for EV battery production by creating jobs. The deal also helps put France at the forefront of the European energy transition.

Interviews and chats with 10 government officials and executives involved in the investment negotiations revealed that the French government rolled out the red carpet, offering the battery manufacturers massive subsidies thanks to a relaxation of EU state aid rules for green energy undertakings, which were passed due to Macron’s personal lobbying.

The sources revealed that changes since Emmanuel Macron became president in 2017, like corporate tax cuts, reductions in factory size based production taxes, and steps to make hiring and dismissals easier, also played a role in the decisions.

Apart from ProLogium, China’s Envision AESC, the ACC consortium, including Stellantis and Mercedes, and Verkor, a local startup, are setting up enormous factories in the same area. The sources further revealed that Chinese EEV giants BYD and Tesla were also being courted by the French government to build cart factories.

Speaking from Dunkirk, President Macron told reporters that these results were simply not falling from the sky and were in line with what the government had been doing for the past six years.

Sources with knowledge of the deal revealed that to win over Prologium’s soild-state battery plant, France offered subisidies worth over 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion). The ProLogium gigafactory is expected to involve a total investment of nearly 5.2 billion euros and create over 3,000 jobs.