Vincent Bolloré invests 2 billion euros in batteries

The Bolloré group is considering an investment of over 2 billion euros to build a battery Megafactory in eastern France.

Vincent Bolloré is a captain of industry in the truest sense of the term. And when a captain faces a storm, he furrows the sails, bows his head, and waits for better winds to set his ship back in motion. Some turn back, but this is not really the philosophy of the Breton entrepreneur!

Moving past this nautical metaphor, do you remember Autolib? On July 31, 2018, this electric car-sharing service came to an end due to a total incompatibility of vision and ambition between the Autolib Vélib mixed syndicate (SVAM) and the Bolloré group. The small electric cars designed by Pininfarina may not have been pretty, but they featured innovative solutions such as a raw stainless steel body, a concept later adopted by Tesla on the Cybertruck. They had been part of the Parisian landscape since their launch in 2011, and the commercial success was undeniable, but it did not translate into economic success. It didn’t matter to Vincent Bolloré, who had now mastered the ins and outs of the car of the future, understanding that this future would be electric and that to propel cars, we would need batteries… lots of batteries! This led to the creation of the subsidiary Blue Solutions.

According to our colleagues at Les Échos, Vincent Bolloré is therefore considering the construction of a battery Megafactory. Not in Brittany for the location, but in eastern France, a strategic point between France and Germany. “Blue Solutions is actively working on a potential project to construct a mega factory that could see the light of day by 2030, if the conditions are met,” confirmed the Group’s spokesperson to AFP. The partnership signed with BMW in March 2023 makes this location logical.

Since 2018 and the end of Autolib, Blue Solutions has been diligently working on numerous future solutions, including the solid battery promising ultra-fast charging. And what if Autolib was merely a stepping stone for Vincent Bolloré?

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