Renault completes spin-off of its EV division Ampere
Renault first confirmed in May 2022 that it was looking into spinning off its EV business. A year and a half later, on 1 November, the French car manufacturer founded Ampere. The operation of eleven sites in France has been transferred to the new, independent company, including four industrial plants: the ElectriCity eMobility cluster in northern France, which includes the Douai, Maubeuge and Ruitz plants, as well as the factory in Cléon.
According to an accompanying press release, Ampere employs over 11,000 people, 35 per cent of whom are engineers. The management team headed by de Meo consists of a “Corporate” group with six members and a “Technology & Operations” group with eleven managers. The individual names can be found in the press release linked below. The task of the management team is not only to push Ampere in the field of electric drives but also to make it an important player in software-defined vehicles. It wants to become “the first European EV and software pure player.”
With its own e-mobility and software development and simultaneous access to Renault’s industrial resources, Ampere’s primary goal is to reduce the costs of the next generation of EVs; previous statements have set a target of 40 per cent. Ampere aims for an average annual sales growth rate of 30 per cent by 2030. As 80 per cent of the investments have already been made, Ampere will be profitable by 2025 and achieve a double-digit margin by 2030.
Although Ampere has now been organisationally separated from the Renault Group, the ownership structure has not changed yet: Ampere remains 100 per cent in the hands of Groupe Renault. The big step onto the stock market will take place a few months later: Ampere shares will be traded in spring 2024, as Renault CEO Luca de Meo told French broadcaster BFM a few months ago. He did not specify the exact date for the IPO.
Therefore, Renault’s top management wants to ensure a certain degree of flexibility to find the right time from their point of view. Two investors for the IPO have already been finalised: Alliance partner Nissan will invest up to 600 million euros in Ampere in return for a seat on the board. Mitsubishi Motors will pump a maximum of 200 million euros into the company.
The IPO is not mentioned in the current announcement. Luca de Meo makes a rather general statement: “Creating a new model of company specialising in electric vehicles and software running as of today: How better to illustrate our revolution and the boldness of our teams? (…) The roadmap pursued by Ampere reflects the Group’s challenging ambitions and I am extremely proud to launch this major step forwards.”
Incidentally, the Ampere logo, now shown for the first time, is based on the shape of the diamond, Renault’s long-standing symbol. However, this consists of many small diamonds, which are arranged in such a way as to convey the idea of “perpetual motion and ascending upwards to a shared goal.”
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