(Reuters) – Saudi Aramco will acquire a 10 percent stake in Horse Powertrain, the joint venture between Renault and Geely in thermal engines, the Chinese group announced on Friday, confirming a Reuters report.
The transaction values the joint venture at 7.40 billion euros.
Geely and Renault will each hold 45% of the capital.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that Aramco was close to signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to take a 10% stake in Horse Powertrain.
Luca de Meo, Renault’s chief executive, said on Friday that the agreement with Saudi Aramco would lead to the creation of a “strike team”.
“Decarbonization of the automotive industry will not be done alone. It requires the best players to join forces to open new paths and find innovative solutions. This is what we are achieving today by welcoming Aramco as a partner strategy of HORSE Powertrain Limited,” he said in a joint statement.
“Aramco’s unique capabilities, including a global network of R&D centers where research on synthetic fuels, hydrogen and the optimization of thermal engines is carried out, will facilitate the development of accessible and sustainable low-carbon solutions,” specifies the communicated.
The Saudi oil group signed a letter of intent in March 2023 with a view to possibly becoming a minority shareholder in the JV, founded on May 31. (Full Story)
Despite the forced march towards electric vehicles in order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and CO2 emissions – particularly in Europe where sales of thermal vehicles should be banned from 2035, unless the trajectory is changed – more than half of the vehicles produced in the world will still have a thermal engine by 2040.
In May, Horse signed its first major contract with a new manufacturer outside Renault, to supply Turkish Habas with diesel engines for light commercial vehicles for several years.
The company also signed a MoU in mid-June with the Brazilian WEG in the technology of “range extenders” for utility vehicles, a technology consisting of using a thermal engine to extend the autonomy of an electric battery.
(Rishav Chatterjee in Bangalore; Zhifan Liu, edited by Blandine Henault)
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