Episode 29: In search of a European EV battery champion - feat. Yann Vincent, ACC

09/07/22 • 24 min

GUEST: YANN VINCENT, CEO OF AUTOMOTIVE CELLS COMPANY (ACC)
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
This episode of Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast is brought to you in partnership with Reuters Events. It was recorded at Reuters Automotive Europe 2022 in Munich, where we had the opportunity to interview Yann Vincent, the CEO of Automotive Cells Company (ACC).

According to Vincent: "ACC was created two years ago in August 2020 with a very simple objective, which is to build a European champion for engineering and manufacturing batteries in Europe."

This wide ranging conversation covered the challenges that any battery maker faces in scaling production and the challenges a European supplier will face in a market dominated by companies from Asia. We also talked about sustainability, recycling, and long-term planning in an industry of rapidly evolving technologies.

We’d like to thank Yann Vincent for taking part in this discussion, and Reuters Events for collaborating with us for this episode of Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast.

Learn more about Reuters Events at Reutersevents.com

And you can subscribe to Ride wherever you get your podcasts - and feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.
ABOUT THE GUEST

Yann Vincent is the Chief Executive Officer of ACC. He joined Renault in 1982 where he held various functions; he was appointed Director of Quality in 2005, and Chief Operating Officer of Renault Groupe subsidiary AvtoVAZ in March 2008.

He joined Alstom Transport in 2009, where he was responsible for operations and performance and a Member of the Executive Committee. From 2014 to 2020, he was lndustrial Director of Groupe PSA.

Vincent was appointed Chief Executive Officer of ACC in September 2020.

Connect with Yann Vincent on LinkedIn.

You can subscribe to Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Feel free to share it, like it, give it a rating, sign up to the Ride LinkedIn page, and check out our website, ridemobilitypodcast.com.

According to Vincent: "ACC was created two years ago in August 2020 with a very simple objective, which is to build a European champion for engineering and manufacturing batteries in Europe."

We’d like to thank Yann Vincent for taking part in this discussion, and Reuters Events for collaborating with us for this episode of Ride: The Urban Mobility Podcast.

Learn more about Reuters Events at Reutersevents.com

He joined Alstom Transport in 2009, where he was responsible for operations and performance and a Member of the Executive Committee. From 2014 to 2020, he was lndustrial Director of Groupe PSA.

Vincent was appointed Chief Executive Officer of ACC in September 2020.

Connect with Yann Vincent on LinkedIn.

Previous Episode

Episode 28: Going carbon-free is no free lunch

GUESTS: Lukas Neckermann, David Woessner, Olaf Sakkers
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
For a consumer, the best price is no price at all. After all, free is the magic number.

But we all know that nothing in life is ever really free. Free is always factored into the cost somewhere along the line. But promoting something as free hides that cost, and leads to a complacency that comes with consequences.

Free parking encourages us to use our cars. And free delivery prevents us thinking twice about buying something, especially if free returns are also part of the deal.

In the quest to go emission-free and carbon-free, is it possible to also enjoy the other things that we like to have for free?

After all, we all know there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Ride caught up recently with future mobility investors David Woessner, of Future Of, and Olaf Sakkers, of Red Blue Capital, and Lukas Neckermann, the COO of Splyt, the mobility super app enabler.
We recorded this conversation at the end of an event and just managed to bring the discussion to a close before the stand we were using was dismantled around us.
REFERENCES
Here are links to support some of the comments made during the show:

DW.com "Fast Fashion - Dumped in Chile's Atacama Desert"
theguardian.com "Past the parcel: how the end of free returns will change the way we shop"
CNBC "Why ‘free’ shipping isn’t free"
thedrive.com "Zillow’s Satellite View Shows the Ghosts of Neighborhoods Erased By America’s Highways"
fastcompany.com "America has eight parking spaces for every car. Here’s how cities are rethinking that land"
"The high cost of free parking" (YouTube)

CONNECT WITH THE GUESTS
You can connect with the show's guests on LinkedIn by using these links:

Next Episode

Episode 30: How to produce cost-effective electric vehicles, feat. BMW, Renault, & NavVis

GUESTS: Philippe Brunet, Renault Group; Felix Reinshagen, NavVis; Dr Michael Kohnhäuser, BMW Group

ABOUT THIS EPISODE
This episode of Ride is brought to you in partnership with Reuters Events, and was recorded at Reuters Automotive Europe 2022 in Munich earlier this year. Ride was invited to moderate a discussion on producing cost-effective EVs, with a panel featuring:

Dr Michael Kohnhäuser, Head of Innovation Management and Digitization Production Drive at BMW Group
Philippe Brunet, Alliance SVP, Powertrain and EV Engineering at Groupe Renault
Felix Reinshagen, CEO and Co-founder of NavVis

The cost of producing an EV is currently anywhere up to 50% more than an equivalent combustion engine vehicle (read more here and here). The battery alone can account for 30% to 50% of the value of the vehicle.

There are some costs which automakers cannot control, at least in the short to medium term. But what automakers can do is optimise their manufacturing processes, making them as cost-effective as possible. And that’s where the factory of the future and digital manufacturing techniques come into play, as well as more immediate solutions such as digital twin technology.

Groupe Renault has been working with Google since 2019 on digitizing its Industry 4.0 processes, using cloud and artificial intelligence to manage supply and demand throughout its supply chain, manufacturing, and logistics. And BMW Group has recently announced that all of its vehicle plants will be digitised using 3D laser scanning by early 2023, using scanning technology and software supplied by NavVis.

During the discussion, we talked about: