Stellantis will need one or two additional U.S. battery plants - Tavares

BILLY-BERCLAU, France (Reuters) -Stellantis will need one or even two additional large factories for electric vehicles batteries in the United States to reach its output targets, the company's chief executive, Carlos Tavares, said on Tuesday.

Speaking to journalists at the inauguration of a so-called gigafactory in northern France, Tavares said the Franco-Italian carmaker would need more similar plants in North America, where it already announced plans for two sites.

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act had created "very favourable" investment conditions in the country, Tavares added.

Stellantis, whose brands include Fiat and Peugeot, is targeting a global battery production capacity of battery cells equivalent to 400 gigawatt-hours (GWh) by 2030.

It has already announced a plant in Canada and one in the U.S. state of Indiana, on top of three European gigafactories with a total capacity of 120 GWh.

(Reporting by Gilles Guillaume, writing by Tassilo Hummel, editing by Silvia Aloisi)