Startups to build UK’s first car battery 'gigafactory'

Two British startups have announced plans to invest as much as £4bn in building the UK’s first large-scale battery factory, in a move that could prove a major boost to the country’s struggling car industry. AMTE Power and Britishvolt have signed a memorandum of understanding saying they will work together on plans for a plant to make lithium ion batteries, the key component in electric cars as well as energy storage products. Lars Carlstrom, the chief executive of Britishvolt, said the companies had an ambition to build facilities producing batteries with capacity of as much as 30 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year, which would be roughly equivalent to the joint Tesla-Panasonic Gigafactory in Nevada. The global automotive industry is racing to secure supplies of lithium ion batteries as manufacturers seek to meet growing demand for electric cars as well as government regulations that limit carbon dioxide exhaust emissions. However, the lack of large-scale battery manufacturing facilities in the UK has raised fears over the future of the country’s automotive industry, including from the Jaguar Land Rover boss, Ralf Speth. AMTE Power, which was founded in 2013, already runs a small facility in Thurso, northern Scotland, and is looking at sites in Teesside and Dundee for a larger plant capable of 1GWh a year.