The UK has landed investment from Indian giant Tata, owner of Jaguar Land Rover, in a ‘over £4 billion’ electric battery gigafactory, which will accelerate the decarbonisation of its industry automobile. This project represents a political victory for Downing Street, which had been negotiating for nine months with Tata to win this investment, notably against Spain. The plant is expected to generate “up to 4,000 new direct jobs and thousands more in the extended supply chain,” said the press release from the Ministry of Enterprise. The new “giga-factory” with a capacity of 40 Gigawatt hours, will be “one of the largest in Europe”, continues the press release.
In March, the business daily FT (Financial Times) wrote that Tata Motors had asked for half a billion pounds (575 million euros) in aid from the United Kingdom to build its battery factory there, failing which it could choose the Iberian Peninsula. The factory is to be built in Bridgewater, south-west England, and production is due to start there in 2026. “It is expected to supply almost half of the battery production the country needs by 2030, which will give a big boost to the transition of the United Kingdom towards vehicles with zero CO2 emissions, estimates the government in its press release.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomed a “mark of recognition of the strength of our automotive industry”. “We can be incredibly proud that Britain has been chosen for Tata Group’s first gigafactory outside India,” he added. “It’s probably the biggest investment ever in the auto industry in this country,” Energy Minister Grant Shapps told Sky News.
The chairman of Tata Sons, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, assures in the press release that the Indian conglomerate “is strongly committed to a sustainable future” and notes that the new factory will “supply electric batteries for future models of Jaguar Land Rover (. ..) with the potential to also supply other manufacturers”. Environmental NGO Greenpeace hailed ‘an important moment for the UK car industry’, which ‘shows that the government has finally started in the international race for clean technologies, while others are already at full speed “.
She is now calling on Downing Street to “keep up with its laudable goal of phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030, and sign the regulations for this”. For its part, the Unite union stresses that “the United States and Europe have clear and proactive plans for jobs and investment” and asks the British government to “put in place a long-term industrial strategy” . The British Faraday University Centre, which specializes in the electrification of the country, points out on its website that “by 2030, it will take a supply of around 100 Gigawatt hours in the United Kingdom to meet the demand for batteries for” vehicles , or the “equivalent of 5 giga-factories, each operating with a capacity of 20 Gigawatt hours per year”.
By 2040 these needs should rise to 200 Gwh, or the equivalent of 10 gigafactories, he adds, stressing the need for the country to accelerate its infrastructure projects. The Chinese Envision AESC is already building with the Japanese manufacturer Nissan a “giga-factory” in Sunderland, in the northeast of the country, a project announced with great fanfare two years ago. The British company Britishvolt, dedicated to the construction of a vast factory of batteries for electric cars, for its part went bankrupt before being bought by the Australian Recharge for an undisclosed sum.
At the end of June, the CCC, the independent body responsible for advising Downing Street on the transition to carbon neutrality, had deplored the “worryingly slow” pace of the energy transition in the United Kingdom. He called on the government to take “bolder” action and “make the climate a priority again”.
