THE FUTURE IS BATTERY POWERED, BUT THEY NEED TO BE BUILT IN THE UK

Everyone’s talking about battery technology and in transport in particular. Electrification is reinventing how transport operates, from road and aero to power generation, distribution and storage.

And with the government banning the sale of all new diesel and petrol-only vehicles from 2030, the race is on to build batteries in the UK, because unless this country is able to produce this key component of an electric vehicle close to the car plant, then the future of the UK’s pioneering car manufacturing industry is seriously in doubt.

When Jaguar Land Rover announced –in the halcyon, pre-Coronavirus days of 2019 that it intended to invest around £1 billion to build electric cars in Britain, its then CEO, Dr Ralf Speth, called on the government to work with business to build a battery gigafactory in the country. He said: “The battery is 40 per cent of the cost of a battery electric vehicle. We want to keep this kind of added value inside the UK.”

In 2017, before the Jaguar Land Rover boss made his pronouncement, the government had committed to investing £318 million in The Faraday Institution. Based at Harwell Campus near Oxford, this is the UK’s flagship battery research programme accelerating the commercially relevant research needed for future battery development to power the transport and energy revolution for the UK.

And then last year, almost out of the blue, along came Britishvolt. In December, the then Coventryheadquartered company acquired exclusive rights to a site in Blyth, Northumberland and intends to begin construction of a battery manufacturing plant as soon as this summer. The project cost is estimated to be £2.6 billion, and the company says that if all goes to plan, world-class lithium-ion batteries will be in production by the end of 2023.

Britishvolt is led by Orral Nadjari, who established the company in 2019. It’s a hugely ambitious project, and he has recruited some of the UK’s top battery experts. One of them is Isobel Sheldon, appointed Chief Strategy Officer at Britishvolt last year. Isobel was awarded an OBE in this year’s New Year’s Honours for her services to the EV battery industry.

Britishvolt intends to build a “second generation” gigafactory, Isobel explained. “The automotive industry currently has the same battery available to it regardless of what the product is expected to do. For instance, the same batteries are being built for large four wheel drives, which can weigh around 2.5 tonnes, as for a small family car, where the weight can be around 1,200 kilos, but the demands on the battery system are totally different.

“We are involving the automotive manufacturers in the development cycle for the cell so we can customise it in the way that brand requires their vehicles to perform. The reason why the industry has been building the same battery for everything was that until recently, there wasn’t enough volume for battery manufacturers to design specifically for a car marque.”

With the internal combustion engine ban looming, automotive manufacturers can begin investing to differentiate themselves from the others. But first, Britishvolt has to build the plant. The company says that investment is being raised from across the world, including from the UK, Middle East, Norway and Sweden. According to reports, the company is also considering listing on the London Stock Exchange later this year in order to raise further funds, and has applied for a UK government grant.

Coventry City Council has also announced its intention to partner with Coventry Airport to build a gigafactory. Read our report on page 44.