The demonstration had to have its effect in the corridors of Versailles. Thick as a sheet of paper, as big as a credit card, the battery shines a small LED bulb. And persists in doing so, even when cut in half. A miracle ? No, a ProLogium battery. Founded in 2006 by engineer Vincent Yang, this Taiwanese company wants to surf on the conversion to electric power in the European automotive market with a technology presented as revolutionary: the solid-state battery. To produce it, the company has set its sights on Dunkirk, where it plans to devote 5.2 billion euros to the construction of a factory. This is by far the biggest foreign project announced at Choose France on May 15. And to win it, Paris rolled out the red carpet.
Active support from France
Piercing blue eyes, imposing stature, Gilles Normand remembers behind the scenes of the deal. “We were received in a small committee by President Macron and the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire at the previous edition of Choose France in 2022. Vincent felt very welcome. realized the potential of investing in France”, relates the former figure of Renault, who has become the architect of the international development of ProLogium. To persuade society to prefer France to Germany and the Netherlands, the Minister of the Economy himself brought the voice of the Taiwanese manufacturer to the scale of the Old Continent in order to enable it to obtain subsidies. Response expected in record time: the green light from the Commission should come around the third quarter of this year. Out of respect for the august European institution, Gilles Normand refuses to give an idea of the amount of direct aid expected. According to rumors, they should exceed the billion euros, to which are added 700 million euros already secured.
Is France’s game worth the candle? In 2026, ProLogium promises to produce 8 gigawatt hours (GWh) of solid-state batteries, then 48 GWh by 2030. With this capacity, the company would be able to equip 500,000 to 750,000 electric cars. This is almost half of French automobile production in 2022, all engines combined! The icing on the cake: 3,000 direct jobs must be created in Dunkirk. And perhaps even more: the company is dangling the installation of its European research and development center in Amiens. “The decision has not been made”, tempers Gilles Normand. Will ProLogium benefit from a new boost to settle in the Somme? No comment.
Expensive technology
For now, the company wants to focus its efforts on its “gigafactory”. It must be said that the bet is huge. First, in terms of timing. The group announces mass production in three years, when the advent of solid-state batteries is not expected before 2030. “It is because our battery chemistry and our manufacturing process are mature that we are planning a industrialization in 2026”, sweeps Gilles Normand. Before Dunkirk, ProLogium will test the strength of its offer by the end of 2023, thanks to a 1 to 2 GWh line in Taiwan. A first baptism of fire.
Beyond the timetable, there is above all the question of the benefits to be expected from the technology adopted. “The ProLogium battery is actually semi-solid. It uses the same materials as a conventional lithium-ion battery. Only the electrolyte (Editor’s note: which allows the ions to circulate between the anode and the cathode) is solid However, the real revolution of the solid will come from its coupling to a lithium-metal anode”, explains Christophe Pillot, director of the Avicenne Energy firm and connoisseur of the sector. For its battery, ProLogium uses a graphite anode, soon replaced by silicon oxide to get rid of the dependence on China. Problem: “It is not certain that these first semi-solid batteries are really better in terms of energy density than those with conventional lithium-ion”, warns the specialist.
Wrong, we retort at ProLogium. For the same volume, the technology would make it possible to double the autonomy, reduce the charging time and improve the safety of electric cars – who says solid, says less risk of fire. These batteries would therefore have everything to please. Except their price. “We will have to wait for the 30 GWh of production to be reasonably competitive with current technology,” admits the executive vice-president. Listening to him, this does not prevent manufacturers from jostling at the gate. The German Mercedes and the Taiwanese VinFast have already entered the capital of ProLogium. No supply agreement has been signed, but “large European and French groups are also showing interest”, insists Gilles Normand. Three years remain for ProLogium to convince them to buy from its future factory in Dunkirk.