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Stellantis’ Rennes Site: Preparing for an Electric Future with the Production of the CR3 Electric Vehicle

The Stellantis site in Rennes is preparing its switch to electric and will soon host a single-product vehicle in production, the 100% electric CR3. What opportunity does this represent for the Breton site?

We are entering an exciting period, which I will describe as learning. We have the opportunity to learn a new technology, that of electrification. We have the privilege of introducing a new platform totally dedicated to electric vehicles (STLA Medium), and of building, here in Rennes, an electric vehicle which will be the first in the family. It will be both able to make daily transport to go to the workplace, but also to allow families to travel long distances to their vacation spots. So we have both a challenge and an opportunity to project ourselves into the future of mobility which, as we know, must be safe, clean and affordable. That’s the whole point here in Rennes. I’m here to find out about the progress of our plans and encourage the teams to make the effort.

Will this new vehicle, this new platform, provide sustainability to the Rennes site?

There are many players in society who ask us for visibility. You know that the lifespan of our vehicles is approximately seven years. We are about a year away from starting, so in this very concrete case of Rennes, we have eight years of visibility ahead of us. I ask you which other player in European society offers you eight years of visibility? I will answer you, there is none… Stellantis, from this point of view, has a very virtuous societal attitude because we are building this visibility. It’s not easy, you have to have very competitive costs, exemplary quality, and learn new things, all with a social body that is solicited in many ways. Personally, I have enormous confidence and pride in leading these teams towards such a difficult but also virtuous objective for our societies.

Carlos Tavares, responding to the press. – Photo: Baptiste Coupin

In the transformation of your industrial model and the transition to electricity, you speak of costs that will have to be reduced by 40%. Will this go through a reduction in staff, here in Rennes?

The additional cost of electricity which was decided by the European Union, it is of the order of 40% compared to thermal. It is quite clear that the middle classes will not be able to pay 40% more for their vehicles and therefore, if we want to continue to keep our customers, we will have to absorb this 40%. It is not only the task of Stellantis and the Rennes factory, it is also that of all our suppliers, our service providers, the States which impose a certain number of taxes and duties on companies. It is the whole social body that will make it possible to solve these 40%… There will be professions that will disappear, there will be new ones that will be created, but this transformation (the transition to electricity, editor’s note) , it was not Stellantis who decided it, it was the European leaders and the European Union who wanted it. It is to them that we must turn to find out what their contribution will be…

President Emmanuel Macron calls on foreign companies to choose the France destination for their future investments. In this sequence of reindustrialisation of the French economy, how can the giant Stellantis (€179 billion turnover in 2022, 280,000 employees) contribute?

We have already announced twelve electric vehicles on French sites. Twelve, not one, not two, not three. There are twelve vehicles that will be produced on French soil. We have completely converted a thermal engine factory into an electric motor manufacturing plant in Trémery (Moselle), we have also converted a mechanical gearbox manufacturing plant into an electrified transmission factory in Metz (Moselle), we inaugurated two days at the Douvrin gigafactory (Hauts-de-France), a former electric motor factory. Don’t you think we’ve done a lot of what there is to do in this country? What you might ask me next, and what I won’t do, is to put my business at risk… Know that most of the profits made by Stellantis are not made in Europe, but in North America. But, it must be said, Europe is doing a very good job, in a very chaotic environment!

2023-06-02 03:58:31
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