Tata Motors concept electric car is displayed at Auto India 2023 on January 12, 2023.
Anindito Mukherjee | Anindito Mukherjee Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tata Group will develop a factory in the UK that will mainly produce electric vehicle batteries, and the Indian conglomerate will invest more than 4 billion pounds ($5.17 billion) in the project.
The news is a big boost to Britain’s plans to secure its own supply of electric car batteries as the country looks to move away from cars that run on petrol and diesel.
in a statement On Wednesday, the British government said the plant would create up to 4,000 direct jobs and provide services to subsidiaries of Jaguar Land Rover. tata motors — with batteries. Other clients in the UK and Europe are also in the spotlight.
The government said the factory would create thousands of additional jobs in industries related to critical raw materials and battery materials downstream in the supply chain.
“This investment is vital to boost the UK’s battery manufacturing capacity needed to support the electric vehicle industry in the long term,” the government said.
“With an initial production capacity of 40GWh, it will provide almost half of the battery production that the Faraday Institute estimates the UK will need by 2030,” it added.
The gigafactory will be one of the largest in Europe. The goal is to start production in 2026. So-called gigafactories are facilities for the mass production of electric vehicle batteries. tesla CEO Elon Musk is widely credited with coining the term.
It has been widely reported that the UK will provide substantial subsidies for the Tata project. The government said details of its support for Tata Sons would be “published in due course as part of our regular transparency data”.
Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday morning, Grant Shapps, the secretary of state responsible for energy security and net-zero emissions, said the news represented “certainly the largest investment in the UK car in 40 years” and “a huge blow to the UK economy”. vote of confidence”.
Discussing the value of Tata’s incentives, Shapps acknowledged that the incentives are “significant and … I’m making no secret of that”, without giving exact figures. He added that the figures “will be published in the usual way due to commercial sensitivity.”
Britain wants to stop the sale of new diesel and petrol cars and vans by 2030 and will require all new cars and vans to be zero-emission from 2035.
News of the Gigafactory plans has been welcomed by industry insiders.
Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Association of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said: “This is a shot in the arm for the UK auto industry, our economy and UK manufacturing jobs, and shows that the UK is open to business and electric vehicle production. “
He added: “This is a pivotal time as the global industry is accelerating its transition to electrification.”
“If we are to stabilize wider car production in the UK in the long term, it is vital that batteries are produced within the UK,” Hoss said.
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