Allenjoie: a blueprint for sustainability
With the opening of its ground-breaking industrial platform at Allenjoie, FORVIA is taking an important step towards meeting its objective to become a sustainable mobility tech leader. The platform is composed of two distinct plants located one kilometer apart, a clean mobility plant and a seating plant, and is aiming to become the largest mass production site for hydrogen storage in Europe. The Allenjoie platform, conceptualized with sustainability at its very core and the recipient of the prestigious “BREEAM Excellent” certification, will serve as a blueprint for FORVIA factories around the world.
Allenjoie platform in figures :
- 47,000: m² of production facilities
- 600: number of employees
A milestone in FORVIA’s hydrogen story
Hydrogen will play a critical role in the energy transition and decarbonization of mobility. The Clean Mobility plant is the first mass production plant of hydrogen storage systems for mobility applications in Europe with a capacity of 100,000 hydrogen type IV tanks a year.
FORVIA has a long-standing commitment to accelerating hydrogen mobility, with more than €400 million invested in R&D, manufacturing initiatives, acquisitions, and partnerships since 2018. Together with Symbio, a joint venture with Michelin and Stellantis, FORVIA now covers 75% of the powertrain value chain, offering fuel cell stacks and tanks as well as complete storage systems and subsystems. FORVIA’s ambition is to become the leader in zero-emissions hydrogen technologies, reaching €3.5 billion in hydrogen-related sales in 2030, Symbio’s revenues included.
The Allenjoie Clean Mobility plant forms a strong part of this commitment. In addition to being FORVIA’s first site of this scale anywhere in the world, it is Europe’s first ever mass producer of type IV hydrogen tanks—the most innovative in the market. The plant will serve automotive and non-automotive customers across Europe by producing flexible storage systems that have a wide range of applications in distribution and transport, including heavy-duty hydrogen-powered vehicles.
Like mobility itself, the Allenjoie platform is also evolving. The Clean Mobility plant is a transition plant which symbolises the transition that the industry is going through. This means two thirds of plant continues to produce emissions control solutions and one third dedicated producing hydrogen storage solutions.
This balance is already shifting as the plant embarks on a gradual transition to prioritize its hydrogen solutions. We expect by 2030 the plant will be fully dedicated to hydrogen storage solutions.
Delivering safe and affordable hydrogen technology is a priority for the Clean Mobility plant. Thanks to more efficient processes and excellence in industrialization, this mass production plant will divide manufacturing costs by five between 2023 and 2025.
More than that, it will serve as an invaluable reference to existing and future FORVIA sites, including those in China, North America, and South Korea, as the Group rolls out its global production standards.
The complete hydrogen storage systems produced at Allenjoie equip commercial fleets of Stellantis (Opel Vivaro-e, Citroën e-Jumpy, Peugeot e-Expert) and Hyvia (Renault Master Van H2 Tech)
Hydrogen storage production at Allenjoie
- 100,000 tanks a year expected capacity by 2030
- 5-fold reduction in production costs over 2 years
An advanced production facility embracing Industry 4.0
At Allenjoie’s second new facility, the Seating plant, up to 60 seating assemblies leave the highly digitized production line every hour, totaling 2,000 a day. Premium car seating from this plant is already being used in four Stellantis models, the Peugeot 308, 408, and 508. Eventually, the plant will manufacture seats for six different models, including the new Peugeot e3008 and a future new vehicle.
Applying “just in time, just in sequence” and Industry 4.0 principles, the Allenjoie seating plant is one of FORVIA’s most advanced production facilities worldwide. In this 100% digitized environment, automated guided vehicles (AGVs) roam the shop floor, transporting parts from the electronically managed stockroom to the production line and taking finished products to shipping bays.
In its unprecedented technological sophistication, this plant is at the cutting edge of the digitalization of industrial processes both within FORVIA and beyond. Yet the plant is by no means a human-free zone, with each of its four areas—pre-assembly, production, quality control, and deliveries—staffed by three teams of highly-trained specialists.
Seating assembly kit production at Allenjoie in figures
- 2,000: daily kit output
- 1,500: number of finished products in automated stockroom at any one time
- 300: number of automated guided vehicles on shop floor
A model plant with sustainability in its very DNA
In both the Seating and Clean Mobility plants, the Allenjoie industrial platform is a key plank in FORVIA’s long-standing decarbonization strategy. The company aims to reach CO2 Net zero by 2045 and will already be carbon-neutral in Scopes 1 (direct on-site emissions) and 2 (indirect emissions from energy consumption) by 2025.
FORVIA is the first in the automotive industry to have a net-zero target endorsed by the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). At Allenjoie, sustainability has been factored in at every point, starting with the new building: thanks to its wooden frame, the carbon footprint from construction is low, while in everyday operation, its effective insulation reduces the amount of energy required by its environmentally-friendly biomass boilers (fired with local forestry products), as does its green roof and an innovative system to recover heat from welding cells.
In addition, the building’s roof is fitted with photovoltaic panels producing 500 kWc of electricity—to power offices, charge vehicles, and reinsert excess production back into the grid. At the Seating plant, a further 135 panels are generating 500 kWc too. Other contributions which make Allenjoie a truly sustainable facility include rainwater sanitation systems, a tree-planting initiative, and on-site beehives. As a result, Allenjoie has garnered the “BREEAM Excellent” certification—the first of its kind awarded to an industrial site in France and only the second in the whole of Europe.
Allenjoie’s environmental credentials
- 5000m² of photovoltaic panels producing 1000 kWc
- 3 biomass-fired boilers with a capacity of 850kVa each
- 3200m³ of wood in the buildings, binding historic carbon
- 160 trees planted, binding new carbon
Yet the long-term importance of Altanlenjoie goes beyond its impressive levels of automation and sustainability statistics: the site also houses the H2 School, a training facility to help employees move from roles in Ultra-low emissions systemscombustion-engine components to new job opportunities in hydrogen field. As a result, 80% of the hydrogen team has been recruited from ultra-low emissions systems, and by 2025, the school is scheduled to have trained upwards of 2,500 members of FORVIA staff. Yes, at Allenjoie, the future is already here—as are the people who will help to make it.
