Stellantis appears ready to quietly drop a cool billion euros right into northern France. According to a leak first reported by Bloomberg, the transatlantic automotive group is cooking up a major upgrade for its Hordain facility, a project aimed at birthing the next generation of medium-sized commercial vans. Naturally, Stellantis hasn’t officially confirmed a single euro yet, dutifully hiding behind the classic “corporate curtain”.
If the Bloomberg murmurs hold true, this massive investment won’t just fund a shiny new assembly line. We are talking about a full-scale overhaul to modernize the plant, pump up factory automation, and pull outsourced operations back in-house, alongside a healthy dose of French R&D funding.
Hordain is currently the beating heart for the aging K0 platform, the ubiquitous mechanical skeleton underneath fleet staples like the Peugeot Expert, Citroën Jumpy, Opel Vivaro, Fiat Scudo, and even Toyota’s rebranded Proace cousin. Securing its next-gen successor effectively guarantees long-term job security for a factory that built a solid chunk of the 661,000 vehicles Stellantis assembled in France during 2025.
While the group operates 42 manufacturing hubs globally and cranked out 5.5 million vehicles worldwide last year across five French sites, France is getting showered with cash. Between this rumored Hordain overhaul and another €1 billion enterprise already earmarked for three electrified Peugeots at Mulhouse come 2029, where 50% goes to R&D, 40% to the plant, and 10% to satellite centers, Stellantis seems intent on making French industrial output fashionable again.
Naturally, electron power will do the heavy lifting. Hordain was already pumping out 43% electric vans back in 2022, but don’t expect any hydrogen fairy dust this time around. Stellantis officially killed its commercial hydrogen fuel-cell program in 2025, deciding that fuel cells were a costly dead end for light commercial vehicles before decade’s end.
Instead, the focus shifts squarely to battery electrics under the group’s “FaSTLAne 2030” playbook, which promises 29 pure EVs and funnels 70% of brand investments into core pillars like Jeep, Ram, Peugeot, Fiat, and the high-margin Pro One commercial unit.
