The 'Airbus Batteries' Is an Ambitious Project That Requires Tens of Billions of Euros of Investment. Materials and Products

The "Airbus batteries" is an ambitious project that requires tens of billions of euros of investment.

France and Germany seek to advance on the thorny issue of batteries. On the occasion of a meeting Tuesday Friends of Industry, Paris and Berlin have agreed to push for the creation of batteries factories on the Old Continent. "The German and French governments, in cooperation with the European Commission, will develop a strategic approach to establish industrial production of battery cells in Europe," said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Germany's Minister of Finance. Economy, Peter Altmaier.

Germany has already committed to devote 1 billion euros to the project for batteries by 2022. France has not reported amount for the moment. Paris and Berlin hope to be able to present consortiums of interested industrialists in the first quarter of 2019. The one comprising Saft, Solvay or Siemens could be included, as well as another with BASF, Varta and Ford.

The idea is to have this project validated as an Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI), at best in the first half of 2019. A statute that allows projects to be financed until a first industrialization, without this support being considered as a State aid. This approach has already been adopted with the IPCEI Nano, a plan dedicated to nanotechnologies.

To date, five cell factory projects have been launched in Europe. There is Chinese CATL, Korean SK, LG and Samsung, and then the Swedish project Northvolt. The European automotive sector has warned several times against the Asian countries' grip on the manufacture of batteries, which account for nearly 40% of the value added of an electric vehicle.

With the switchover of thermal cars to electric cars, Natixis alerted Friday on a possible "collapse of added value and employment in the car in Europe." In this context, voices were raised to call for an "Airbus batteries". An ambitious project that requires tens of billions of euros in investments.

Also present in Paris on the occasion of this meeting of the Friends of Industry, the Polish Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology, Jadwiga Emilewicz, expressed reservations about this Franco-German agreement. "We understand that the door will remain open so that we can get on the train, otherwise I doubt that this ambitious project can be realized in the short term," she said.