France lands battery gigafactory with sweeteners, zero-carbon power

France beat competition from Germany and the Netherlands for ProLogium's first overseas car battery plant with lobbying from President Emmanuel Macron, deal sweeteners and competitive power prices, executives from the Taiwanese company said.

After narrowing a list of countries down from 13 to three, ProLogium said it settled this week on the northern French port city of Dunkirk for its second gigafactory and first outside Taiwan.

With production slated to begin in 2026, the gigafactory - a term popularized by Tesla (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk and which refers to plants producing batteries on a large scale - will be the fourth in northern France, adding to an emerging specialized cluster central to Europe's electric car industry.

Europe currently largely depends on batteries made in Asia for electric cars, and national leaders are offering various incentives to kick-start the industry.

That has become more urgent since the United States last year passed its $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which includes major tax subsidies to cut carbon emissions while boosting domestic production and manufacturing.

Macron, who personally met with ProLogium CEO Vincent Yang at the start of the vetting process, was due on Friday to officially announce in Dunkirk the 5.2 billion euro ($5.7 billion) investment.

Gilles Normand, ProLogium executive vice-president, said that after Macron, a former investment banker, pitched Yang more than a year ago Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire followed up and helped make the company's case with the European Commission for EU financial incentives.

"There was then the realization that there might be some interesting possibilities, which was maybe a little bit different from the clichés about France," Normand told a small group of journalists.

Reuters