Investments of more than €30bn for developing electric vehicles between now and the end of 2021 will be made by Stellantis, an entity that was formed by the merger of Italian-American group Fiat Chrysler and France’s PSA, the company has said.

The aim of the company is to make the cost of purchasing an electric vehicle and running it the same as that of a similar petrol powered car by 2026. And to support its strategy, it would construct at least five battery plants in Europe and the US. Stellantis said.

Announcements of building two plants in France and Germany and a third one in Italy in Termoli, have already been made by the company.

Stellantis is the fourth largest car maker of the world and is setting itself up to rival the EV market leader Tesla and other big car manufacturers.

The company will start selling completely electric powered versions of all 14 of its vehicle brands, which include Peugeot, Jeep, Ram, Fiat and Opel, Stellantis said. The focus of the company would be to make the electric vehicles affordable and sustainable, the company said. The company however did not provide any details of the price range for its EVs that Stellantis was planning.

The commercial vehicle line-upof the company will be electrified and  hydrogen fuel-cell vans will also be launched by the by the end of 2021.

“This transformation period is a wonderful opportunity to reset the clock and start a new race,” Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares said. “The group is at full speed on its electrification journey.”

Four platforms will be used for building its electric cars, the company said, and the driving ranges of its electric cars would be between 500 and 800 km (300 to 500 miles) on a single charge. The cars would also have fast-charging capability of 32 km (20 miles) per minute.

Plans of building electric vans at its Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire in the United Kingdom was also announced by the company this week. It is expected that the UK government will contribute about £30m of the £100m investment which will be able to protect more than 1,000 factory jobs. After Stellantis scrapped plans to build its new Astra model there, the future of the plant had been in doubt.

The two “gigafactories” at Douvrin in France and Kaiserslautern in Germany will get French and German government support of €1.3bn.

At least two more such plants will be built by the company and they are likely to be located in the United States, a spokesman for Stellantis said. The company currently was not planning to build any gigafactories in the UK and the battery factories will be built at its major production hubs, the spokesman said.

(Adapted from BBC.com)