West Midlands battery factory 'hopeful' of government support

The leaders of the West Midlands Gigafactory (WMG) project have called for further government investment in UK battery manufacturing, following Tata’s announcement that it will spend £4 billion to open a factory in Somerset as soon as 2026. The start-up said in a statement that the government’s commitment to UK automotive (through the Tata plant) made it “clear the UK government recognises the urgency of supporting the UK’s mobility and energy storage sectors”. The BBC reported in May that incentives offered to Tata during negotiations – including monetary grants and energy subsidies – were worth close to £800 million. “We're now extremely hopeful that this example will be continued,” said WMG. The Tata plant – to be operated under the Agratas subsidiary – will produce some 40GWh of batteries annually. According to a June 2022 report published by The Faraday Institution, demand for locally produced batteries – for automotive, micromobility and grid-storage applications – will reach roughly 100GWh in 2030 and double a decade later. Currently, the UK hosts just 2GWh of battery production, all at Envision AESC’s plant at the Nissan manufacturing hub in Sunderland, which supplies cells for the Nissan Leaf. The Leaf will be replaced by a higher-volume electric crossover in 2026, requiring an extension to the Envision site. This will add another 11GWh to Sunderland’s battery output by 2024, Nissan said in May, and there's sufficient room for it to eventually scale up to 30GWh. The eventual output from the Envision and Agratas sites will combine to give the UK around 50GWh of domestic EV battery supply annually by 2026, but the UK will need double that figure if it is to meet the demand projected by The Faraday Institution four years later. “At the moment, we've a realistic line of sight [projecting] fractions of that,” said WMG strategy boss Richard Moore in October 2022, before the Tata factory had been confirmed. He told Autocar: “We need to make sure that all the options that are being studied – not just WMG – bear fruit if we're going to hit those figures.” The WMG project aims to be production-ready by 2025 and targets an eventual capacity of 60GWh, but it's yet to clarify a timeline for this development. In January 2022, Warwick District Council and Coventry City Council approved an early-stage planning application for the site. WMG set a lofty target of raising £2.5bn, hence its eagerness for government support; few potential backers have large enough coffers to get the ball rolling. Whether that support will arrive is doubtful. The government didn't bail out the Britishvolt start-up, which had originally promised to open with a capacity of 30GWh in 2023, as it rapidly collapsed. Similarly, the government hasn't provided assistance to AMTE Power, which plans to open a 10GWh site, despite it facing collapse “within days”, according to a Sky News report. Read more UK automotive wins big with Tata battery factory – but what's next? JLR CEO: Tata batteries "fundamental" for UK automotive industry Tata: Somerset batteries not just for Jaguar Land Rover Editor's letter: Is Tata's gigafactory the saviour of UK automotive?