Michelin & Faurecia launch fuel cell JV Symbio
The merger of the fuel cell businesses of Michelin and Faurecia announced in March, has now been completed. The two French companies hold equal shares in the formally established joint venture “Symbio, A Faurecia Michelin Hydrogen Company”.
Since the announcement was made in March very little information has been released about the new joint venture – until now: The company will be set with a start-up capital of 140 million euros to accelerate the development of new fuel cells for commercial vehicles, among other things, to start series production and to drive business development in Europe, China and the USA. The goal is to achieve a market share of 25 per cent by 2030 and sales of around 1.5 billion euros. Faurecia says in their press release that the joint venture has “the aim of becoming a world leader in hydrogen mobility.”
The company Faurecia will contribute “its technological hydrogen mobility expertise and the results of R&D work” carried out with the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA). Michelin, for its part, will contribute the know-how of its subsidiary Symbio, which offers hydrogen fuel cell kits and a range of services and design and production activities.
The managers of the joint venture will come equally from the two groups. The CEO of the joint venture will be and will remain Symbio CEO Fabio Ferrari (thus Michelin representative), COO will be Guillaume Slavo, former Director of Light Vehicle Product Line at Faurecia.
“The development of hydrogen mobility is a perfect illustration of Michelin’s growth ambitions, particularly in the field of high-tech materials,” says Florent Menegaux, President of the Michelin Group. “This strategy is itself part of a broader vision of more sustainable mobility made widely accessible”. Patrick Koller, CEO of Faurecia, added: “The complementarity of our expertise and business models brought together in an innovative ecosystem, will be a considerable asset in meeting the growing demand from our customers and consumers to see affordable zero-emission technologies brought to market quickly”.
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