Battery packs for passenger EVs will be built at WAE Technologies’ new Oxfordshire battery factory, its billionaire owner Andrew Forrest confirmed to Autocar at its opening ceremony today.
The £20 million Kidlington site, which employs 300 people, will initially be used to create, develop and test technologies for WAE’s motorsport series – Formula E, Extreme E and, from 2025, Extreme H – as well as parent company Fortescue Metals’ mining fleet.
The latter, currently in the prototype phase, includes making 1.4MW packs (pictured below) to power its biggest 240-tonne machines. Eight packs are used, which equates to “around eight to 10 hours” of site use, the company confirmed to Autocar.
The battery site, which will be joined by another in Banbury next year, has the capacity to produce 500 prototype battery systems per year, with a total production capacity of 50MWh per annum.
