From the article, “PARIS, Nov 8 (Reuters) - French car maker Renault on Wednesday officially launched its electric vehicle unit Ampere, which was carved out from Renault’s other operations on Nov. 1. Having pioneered the market for first-generation electric vehicles with its long-time ally Nissan in the early 2010s, Renault has recently fallen behind pure players like Tesla and Chinese manufacturers as global competition for greener vehicles has picked up.”

“Ampere says it employs over 11,000 people, a third of whom are engineers, and aims to become a European leader in the EV market both for technology and the competitiveness of its cars. To ward off increased competition from cheaper Chinese EVs Ampere aims to reduce by 40% the cost of manufacturing cars through 2027 and beyond, by offering fewer models and cutting costs at the conception and production stage.”

“Ampere has three factories in northern France. It will purchase batteries for its cars from Chinese-Japanese maker AESC Envision and French start-up Verkor, which both have gigafactories near Ampere’s plants. Ampere targets production capacity of 400,000 EVs at the beginning, versus less than 50,000 electric Renault Megane and Kangoo vehicles sold last year. Output should reach 600,000 in 2026 and one million in 2031.”