When French start-up Verkor begins rolling car batteries out of its new gigafactory near Dunkirk, it wants them to be fit to carry the tag: “Made in Europe.”
Despite the factory’s location, that will require some changes. Right now, “a bit more than 50 per cent” of each battery comes from Asia, says chief executive Benoit Lemaignan. “But we are aiming for local content. It will be north of 60 to 70 per cent of our materials. Graphite, cathode, electrolytes are already in Europe so we are in this movement of localisation.”
Touted as a great hope for Europe’s nascent battery industry and French re-industrialisation, Verkor is also emblematic of a new effort by the EU to save its manufacturing base — at the risk, its critics say, of increasing costs, damaging competitiveness and alienating trading partners.