Mining tycoon’s boost for UK electric car batteries amid fears country will be left behind
The UK’s depleted electric battery industry has been given a surprise boost after a mining magnate announced plans to open a battery plant in Oxfordshire in April. Andrew Forrest, one of Australia’s wealthiest men and founder of the mining firm Fortescue, said one of his companies would open a factory at Kidlington. Mr Forrest said WAE Technologies – formerly a part of the famed Williams Formula 1 team – will expand to build batteries and fuel cells.
He bought WAE last year. The news came 24 hours after Britishvolt, touted as a “flagship” UK electric car battery company, went into administration. The company, which had planned a gigafactory to make the batteries in Northumberland, appointed administrators after failing to raise enough cash for its research and the development of its site near Blyth.
Its collapse sparked urgent questions in Parliament, where MPs of all parties expressed widespread concern about the impact of the failure on the UK’s car industry. The collapse and its implications will also be probed by the business select committee. Mr Forrest, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davo, Switzerland, said: “We invested heavily in British technology, British know-how and British work ethic last year.
But then we’ve said: ‘Listen, it’s great you’ve got the most advanced, innovative prototype batteries in the world… but we’ve got to get into manufacturing.’ “So last year, we started building a factory in Kidlington. We’ll open it in April.
It will [create] hundreds and hundreds of jobs. He said the plant was “only the start” and that “I want to expand it from there and take that technology to Australia, North America. I want to stop the British brain drain and bring the smartest British engineers home.
“These are batteries which are going to be everywhere: in motorbikes, cars, trucks, huge mining trucks in Australia, even trains,” he told Sky News. There is growing alarm at the lack of progress in government support for the development of battery production in the UK.
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Carmakers worldwide have announced plans to develop electric versions of their vehicles as governments increase aid for battery-powered vehicles and put in place green net-zero rules restricting petrol and diesel cars. Without UK battery production, industry experts warn car makers will reduce investment in the UK and move their plants to Europe or Asia.
In October, BMW announced it intended to halt production of the electric Mini at its Oxford site and switch it to China, where there is state support for making batteries, allowing it to cut production costs and supply chain difficulties. When the UK’s top car maker Jaguar Land Rover revealed its plans to electrify its range of vehicles it warned that its plant at Castle Bromwich in Birmingham, where about 2,000 workers assemble Jaguar’s XE range and its F-type sports car models, employment could be dramatically reduced with the next four to five years as a result of a lack of UK battery manufacturing. Think-tank The Faraday Institution says the UK will need 10 battery gigafactories – large, high-volume manufacturing facilities – by 2040 to meet demand for green vehicles.
It said the UK is not moving fast enough. British plants could reach a combined capacity of 57 GWh by 2030, equivalent to about 5 per cent of total European GWh capacity, compared with 34 per cent in Germany. Jonathan Reynolds, Labour’s shadow Business Secretary, called Birtishvolt’s collapse a “disaster” for the UK car sector which employs 182,000 people.
He blamed the Government’s lack of vision and said competitor countries were building the necessary factories because “they have governments with the vision and commitment to be the partners these companies need to turn these factories from plans on paper into a reality. “Unless the Government wakes up to the scale of the transition that is required, we risk missing out many of the good jobs so many of our communities want and rely upon, we will miss out on one of the greatest economic opportunities this country has ever had.” Matt Western, Labour MP for Warwick, suggested the Britishvolt battery project had not been taken seriously by many in the UK car industry from its outset in 2019.
Britishvolt got off to a shuddering start when one of its co-founders, entrepreneur Lars Carlstrom was forced to quit as its chairman after it emerged he had a tax fraud conviction in Sweden.
Peter Rolton, executive chairman of electric vehicle battery startup Britishvolt (Nick Carey/Reuters)
However the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) at Warwick University, one of the world’s leading net-zero motoring research centres said Britishvolt had developed “very credible” prototypes, which they did without grant funding, and got them out to potential customers. Julian Hetherington, at the APC called the collapse “a disappointing blow for the company, the UK automotive sector and the individuals affected.
It is no secret that gigafactories require substantial investment and our insight suggests there is a huge opportunity in the UK associated with the electrification of cars alone, specifically with battery manufacturing.” The APC forecasts there will be demand for at least 90 Gigawatts hours (Gwh) of UK manufacturing demand by 2030. Nissan and Chinese battery firm Envision are building capacity to create 9Gwh. “Clearly we will need more.
There is undoubtedly much still to do for the UK to meet its net zero ambition – but there is still a lot to play out.
MPs from different parties have called on the Government to work with the Britishvolt administrators to persuade another producer to make batteries at the plant.
On Wednesday night it was reported that up to a dozen companies, including Jaguar Land Rover, have already expressed interest in buying Britishvolt’s Northumberland factory site, only hours after the group collapsed.