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Photo: iStock.com/PhonlamaiPhoto
Members of the U.K. parliament’s business committee have said that the country could be faced with a “gigafactory gap” that could stifle the growth of the nation’s EV sector barring government assistance.
Committee members said that the U.K. has a “limited window in the next three years to attract further investment into this sector.” Otherwise, the car industry could start to decline, costing thousands of people their jobs, according to The Guardian.
The U.K. currently has just one facility producing batteries at a “giga” scale: a site owned by AESC in Sunderland that is capable of producing 2 gigawatt hours (GWh) of battery capacity annually.
Two more gigafactories are scheduled to be built in the country. The first is a larger AESC factory in Sunderland that will be able to produce 38GWh, or roughly 600,000 car batteries per year. The other 40GWh gigafactory, being built by India's Tata, will supply batteries for Land Rover and Jaguar vehicles.
The U.K. will still come up short of its 100GWh mark by 2030 and its 200GWh goal by 2040, even after these factories are completed and operational.
The report by the members of parliament (MPs), published November 21, calls for more investment from the government to support crucial part and battery materials providers in the U.K., limiting the country’s reliance on China.
“Right now, the U.K. is on course to secure barely half of the electric battery capacity needed by the domestic car industry alone,” said Liam Byrne, the Labour MP leading the business committee. “Unless we fix this fast, we risk the industry simply relocating to Europe or the U.S., or becoming reliant on imports from China and elsewhere.”
The Department for Business and Trade announced plans to publish a wide-ranging battery manufacturing plan for the country this week, which includes the U.K.’s first battery strategy.
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