The Indian automotive group Tata, owner of Jaguar-Land Rover, confirms the construction of a huge electric battery factory south of Bristol (United Kingdom) to meet the needs of the two brands in full transformation to electric.
For nine months, the British government had been battling with the Indian group Tata for the establishment of a mega-factory of batteries on English soil. Finally, after long negotiations, it is indeed across the Channel that the new factory of the Indian giant, owner of Jaguar and Land Rover among others, will be built.
The plant, which should generate “up to 4,000 new direct jobs and thousands more in the extended supply chain”, will be “one of the largest in Europe” with its annual capacity of 40 gigawatt hours. The production site will be located in Bridgwater, a town located in the southwest of England, near Bristol. Production should officially start in 2026. The factory should supply “nearly half of the battery production the country needs by 2030, which will give a big boost to the United Kingdom’s transition to zero CO2 emissions vehicles”, estimates the British government in its press release.
The United Kingdom in favor of Spain
It was close, since Spain was also in the running for the establishment of this super-factory. During the discussions, Tata had requested half a billion pounds (575 million euros) in aid from the United Kingdom for the construction of the factory, without the amount of aid granted being known today, a “commercially sensitive” subject according to a Downing Street spokesperson. Still, Tata announces a total investment of more than 4 billion pounds (4.6 billion euros) to bring this new production site out of the ground.
This will of course be used to manufacture the batteries for future electric models from Jaguar and Land Rover, which are undergoing a major transformation. But the president of Tata, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, does not refrain from supplying other manufacturers.
With this new plant, the United Kingdom could therefore finally catch up on electrification, after having been singled out by the CCC (independent body responsible for advising Downing Street on the transition to carbon neutrality), which deplored the “worrying slowness” of the pace of energy transition in the United Kingdom. The Chinese group Envision is currently building a new giga-factory with the Japanese manufacturer Nissan on its land in Sunderland (planned for 2024), while the British company Britishvolt has gone bankrupt and was bought by the Australian company Recharge, after having launched a project for a vast factory of batteries for electric cars.
This article is originally published on auto-moto.com
