French billionaire Vincent Bollore announced today that his company, the Bollore Groupe, will invest $120 million in a battery factory in Boucherville, according to an article in Yahoo News Canada. They will be the first in the world producing the innovative lithium-metal-polymer battery technology that was developed in parallel by Quebec's Avestor, absorbed by Bollore Groupe in 2007, and BatScap, another Bollore subsidiary.
The interesting thing is that, at the time of the takeover of Avestor, Bollore had applied to build the new manufacturing facility in Brittany, France. For some reason they have decided to add to the existing Avestor facilities in Canada.
Maybe this was faster, easier to get approved, or perhaps a question of cheaper electricity, or, perhaps they hit up the QC gov't for tax concessions - who knows? No reasons given. Or maybe they will build in Brittany later.
This battery has an electric car project ready to go, in collaboration with the Italian Pininfarina Group. The fully electric "Bluecar" has already been shown at trade fairs in Europe and there is apparently a prototype of it set up in the Avestor building in Boucherville, Quebec. It has a top speed of 130 km/h and range of 250 km on a charge.
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