It's not yet a gigafactory but it marks the start of the road to mass production. On Tuesday, January 23, Taiwanese start-up ProLogium inaugurated a plant in Taoke, Taoyuan County (60 kilometers from Taipei), capable of generating 0.5 and then 2 gigawatt-hours of solid – or nearly solid – batteries promised to the automotive industry and the French government. That's enough to equip 14,000 cars and pave the way for the next stage: the gigafactory in Dunkirk (northern France), which could eventually manufacture batteries for more than 500,000 cars a year.

At the last Choose France summit in May 2023, President Emmanuel Macron pledged a €1.5 billion subsidy for the factory that this mysterious Taiwanese company wants to build on the large port's former industrial land. Production "could start in 2027, if everything goes smoothly, with large-scale production by 2029," according to CEO and founder Vincent Yang at the Taiwanese site's inauguration.

In March, the group is expected to announce the location of its R&D center in France. It will be headed by Dmitry Belov, a Russian engineer specializing in electrolytes, who joined ProLogium in April 2010, four years after the company was founded. At that time, the company had just a dozen employees, compared with around a thousand today.

Nestled behind a row of wind turbines along the seafront, the Taoke plant is set to receive financial backing from the Taiwanese government. However, the company has refused to disclose the exact amount of support for the investment, which is estimated to be €123 million.

For the past 17 years, Yang has been working on the development of solid-state batteries. Unlike current technologies, these batteries are touted to be non-flammable, lighter, less cumbersome and capable of providing greater autonomy with faster charging. While many automotive manufacturers see this as the ultimate goal, few believe it's readily achievable.

Technological promises

ProLogium's founder insists he has the solution. His demonstration is well-rehearsed: He always carries a small battery the size of a business card that powers an LED bulb. He bends it, strikes it with a pair of scissors, then cuts it. The light stays on. There's no smoke to indicate a short circuit. "We're the first to be able to put this solid-state battery into large-scale production. We are going to start and equip electric cars," said Yang.

The Taoke factory (58,000 square meters) is laid out over three floors, due to the lack of space in Taiwan for a single-story configuration. Jürgen Dohmen, a representative of German engineering company FEV who attended the inauguration, pointed out that production starts with hybrid electrolyte batteries, meaning they are not entirely solid. They still contain 10% liquid, which is "much less than traditional batteries" and reduces the production process by almost eight hours.

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