Which plants stop and when
Sochaux, in eastern France, halts from 23 to 30 October. It builds the Peugeot 3008 and 5008, the electric versions included. Rennes stops from 22 to 30 October and builds the Citroën C5 Aircross. A third French site, Mulhouse, closes from 15 to 30 October, but Stellantis says the reason there is not the battery shortage.
The company describes the Sochaux and Rennes stops as much as an inventory decision as a supply problem. It does not want to pile up cars that customers are not ordering while the long-range versions sit waiting for cells. A plant that cannot get batteries for its most-requested variants has little reason to run flat out on the rest.
ACC supplies about 1,000 long-range packs a month
ACC now runs a single cell factory, in Douvrin in northern France. The plants it had planned in Kaiserslautern, Germany and Termoli, Italy were dropped in February 2026. Stellantis is its anchor customer and takes most of what comes out of the site.
Bloomberg reported in February that Douvrin was supplying long-range packs for only around 1,000 cars a month at the start of the year, well below plan. ACC brought in a team of experts from China to cut defect rates. Secretary-general Matthieu Hubert told Bloomberg at the time that the ramp-up was proving difficult and that the company was learning day by day.
Put those figures side by side. A thousand 97 kWh packs a month is roughly 97 MWh, or about 1.2 GWh over a year. That is a small volume for a group selling under more than a dozen brands.
What the shortage costs buyers
The long-range models use a 97 kWh pack. The same cars with 73 kWh cost about €5,000 less. Divide it out and the extra capacity works out at roughly €208 for each of the 24 additional kilowatt-hours.
Extra capacity does not turn into the same amount of extra range. At a mixed real-world consumption of about 18 kWh/100 km, 24 kWh is worth around 130 km between charges, and less on a winter motorway run. Our EV range calculator lets you put your own car, speed and temperature into those sums.
The waiting times are the harder part. Bloomberg reported delays of up to eight months in February. A Stellantis dealer told Automobilwoche in April that deliveries had slipped to the first or second quarter of 2027, and some dealers had stopped giving binding dates altogether. Fleet customers keep ordering the long-range versions in bulk, so demand stays above what Douvrin can ship.
What to ask before you sign
Ask the dealer which version you are buying and where its cells come from. Long-range packs for these models come from ACC, and that is where the delay sits. The long delivery times reported so far concern the long-range variants in particular.
Get a delivery date written into the contract rather than promised over the phone. If the answer is "first quarter of 2027", say that out loud at home and check whether the family holiday plans can wait that long.
Before paying extra for the bigger pack, work out how often you will use the range. Drivers who charge at home and keep most trips inside 200 km rarely need it. If you tow a caravan or drive long motorway legs in winter, the larger battery earns its money. Our EV catalog lists the affected models and the alternatives.
Europe's cell plants are still being built
ACC's decision to concentrate on Douvrin followed the scrapping of its German and Italian projects, which were part of the EU's effort to make cells at home. The same pressure runs through the material side of the chain, where European projects such as Vianode and FAAM's work on anode graphite from production scrap are trying to cut reliance on imports.
Regulators keep adding demand at the same time. The US fleet rule finalised for 2031 is one example of rules that push carmakers toward electric line-ups while the supply chain behind them is still being built.
Sochaux and Rennes are scheduled to restart at the end of October. Stellantis has not said how many cars the stoppage will cost, and the output of long-range cells from Douvrin stays the limit on how quickly customers get their cars.
Source: https://www.electrive.com/2026/09/30/battery-shortage-stellantis-pauses-ev-production-in-france/
