Vocal Voices

It was to be the first of a few gigafactories to be built in the UK to see us through the transition from fossil fuel transport to EVs of all types. Without the batteries we will need to import them in order to continue to manufacture vehicles. It could even be that vehicle manufacturing leaves the UK for good and goes to places nearer the manufacturing bases - there are 35 being built or are planned in Europe.

This decision is so short sighted, both at the political and business levels, it is almost criminal. It looks as though the plans were doomed from the off. It was more a dream than a reality. That needn't have been the case if some tough questions were asked in the beginning and due diligence applied throughout the process before a brick was laid.

It (and others) could still go ahead though it looks as though they will need to be majority publicly owned if they do.

There was supposed to be a level of government funding for this. However it wound up "not in the budget" with the cuts.

The main issue was a lack of customers to buy the batteries and insufficient funding to see the company through the start-up phase and into full volume production.

This funding issue is playing out throughout the EV and battery space all over. Most EV's cost more to manufacture than they can possibly get back in sale price. Only BYD, Tesla and some of the very expensive luxury EV's are making a profit. Meaning that unless they reduce costs, going to volume production will bankrupt them even faster.

This, I believe, is what took Britishvolt down.

Battery factories are being set up by existing players in the battery market (Panasonic, LG, CATL etc), plus a few EV manufacturers for their own vehicles (Nissan, Tesla, BYD). Britishvolt underestimated the competitive nature of the market and the sheer scale of the challenge to manufacture EV batteries at volume for a profit.