Taiwanese battery maker ProLogium eyes overseas base in France

PARIS: Battery maker ProLogium aims to put down roots outside of its home of Taiwan with a major new investment in France and wants to float on the stock market to help fund its expansion, executives said.

The privately held car battery maker will invest 5.2 billion euros (RM25.4bil) by 2030 in a new gigafactory in the northern French port city of Dunkirk, its first outside of Taiwan and its biggest, the company announced on Thursday.

With Taiwan a focal point in tensions between Washington and Beijing, the company aims to set up a base overseas to ensure it can maintain operations over the long-term.

"Because of political issues, our board does not want to enlarge too much capacity there (in Taiwan)," founder and chief executive Vincent Yang told journalists as he announced the investment in France.

"We are not a Taiwanese company anymore," he added.

The company is lining up loans and equity to finance the French plant as well as financial incentives from the French government, the region and city of Dunkirk as well as possible EU funds.

Meanwhile, German carmaker Mercedes Benz Group AG and Vietnamese group Vinfast have taken stakes in the company and clients testing its technology were welcome to do the same, executive vice-president Gilles Normand said.

"We want to go to an IPO, depending on market conditions" in parallel to the fundraising process for the Dunkirk plant, Yang said.

The French investment is about more than just building an overseas production hub as ProLogium is also setting up facilities outside Taiwan for procuring materials as well as research and development activities, Normand said.

"We are really replicating the company from Taiwan, from its initial city, it is a partial transfer to Europe," he added.

The French plant, which is due to begin operating by the end of 2026 and reach mass production the following year, will in particular produce new solid-state batteries offering what the company says are big advantages over lithium-ion batteries currently used in most electric cars.

The company, which has 600 patents on the technology and six carmakers testing it, says that they will be safer for consumers, simpler to manufacture, offer more storage capacity and better recyclability as well as charge faster.

"We think our technology is now ready for mass production before the beginning of the next decade, when everybody is waiting for solid state not to happen before 2030," Normand said.