Britain to build EV gigafactory as expert warns against foreign reliance ‘work lies ahead’

Britishvolt is set to benefit from a £100million investment from the UK Government as they seek to build Britain’s first large-scale “gigafactory”. The new electric car battery factory is set to be built near Blyth in Northumberland and is one of two major UK battery manufacturing projects.

Alongside Britishvolt, funding has been secured for an expansion of an existing plant in Sunderland owned by China’s Envision which supplies to Nissan.

The company is hoping to build the plant rapidly with the aim of supplying a large part of the UK car industry’s needs as it transitions from internal combustion engines to electric cars that produce zero exhaust emissions.

The plant will employ about 3,000 workers when it is at full capacity in around 2028.

The first batteries are scheduled to start production in 2024 to take advantage of rising demand.

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This comes as new Government data shows there are a total of 28,375 public EV charging devices available in the UK.

Just over 5,150 of these were rapid chargers, an increase of five percent compared to October 2021.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps praised the new data on Twitter, saying the Government was “boosting green jobs” and making the switch to EV’s “easier than ever before”.

Ben Foulser, Head of Future Mobility, at KPMG UK, said: “As electric vehicle adoption rises, it’s encouraging to see more public charging points installed. 

“But there’s no doubt that the pace of delivery will have to increase in order to both cope with the demand of the coming years, and to convince others to transition to EVs.

“It’s also vital that any use of public funding to de-risk investment by the private sector is targeted and successful. 

“This includes development of commercially attractive portfolios that incorporate rural and smaller sites, enabling a just transition to zero emission mobility across the UK.”