PARIS (Reuters) – Renault has chosen China’s Envision AESC to produce batteries in the future Douai plant in northern France that will equip its future electric vehicles, including the Renault 5 model, two sources close to the matter told Reuters.
The news could be announced at the “Choose France” event hosted by President Emmanuel Macron next week, the sources said, confirming a Bloomberg report.
The future plant of Douai is expected to have a production capacity of 24 GWh by 20230, the sources said. One of the sources said the plant involved an investment of around two billion euros for Envision.
The Douai battery factory will complement Renault’s electric car hub known as “Renault ElectriCity” born from pooling three of its plants in northern France, Douai, Ruitz and Maubeuge. The hub aims to turn out 400,000 vehicles a year by 2025.
Renault, which will detail its future electric car strategy on Wednesday, had said that “Renault ElectriCity” would lead to the creation of 700 jobs spread across the various sites, which currently employ nearly 5,000 people, by 2025.
(Reporting by Gilles Guillaume, Writing by Dominique Vidalon ; Editing by David Gregorio)
