Taiwan's ProLogium to invest $5 B in French battery plant

Taiwanese battery maker ProLogium said Friday it will invest billions of dollars in building a new factory in northern France for its first European plant.

The group hopes to start production at the end of 2026, and ramp up over several years until it has some 3,000 employees in the factory.

It will invest 5.2 billion euros ($5.7 billion) in Dunkirk by 2030, and produce batteries for hundreds of thousands of cars there once at full capacity.


The group specialises in the development of "solid-state" batteries which are considered more powerful, safer and quicker to charge than the lithium-ion cells often used in electric vehicles.

"We can charge 80% of the battery in 12 minutes... if we take the Tesla model 3 this 80% (will take) 20 minutes," said Gilles Normand, vice president for international development. Solid-state batteries are also around 50 kilograms lighter, he added, which makes a big difference to the performance of the car carrying it.

The Taiwanese group decided on Dunkirk because it allows proximity to its customers too, he said, with many electric vehicle factories located in northern Europe.

The plant will also contribute 12,000 indirect jobs in the region, Prologium said.

"Dunkirk is extremely well connected: rail, road, highway; Its a deep sea harbour so easy for us to import and export some of our products," Normand said.

"It's fair to say that there is a developing ecosystem for batteries in northern France".