Jaguar Land Rover to set-up EV battery plant in the UK

News Analysis

24

May

2023

Jaguar Land Rover to set-up EV battery plant in the UK

  • Steven Seget

News reports on Wednesday suggest that Jaguar Land Rover will select the UK over Spain for its new multi-billion dollar electric vehicle (EV) battery plant.

Such an announcement, expected as early as next week, would be a significant boost to the UK’s ambitions to build out its domestic EV battery supply chain. 

The UK’s battery build-out has fallen behind its European and North American contemporaries. Current operating capacity is limited to one plant in Sunderland supplying batteries for Nissan’s Leaf production. Earlier this year, Britishvolt’s spectacular collapse into administration left the UK’s future plans for battery gigafactory investment unclear, if not close to non-existent. 

It appears that any agreement for Jaguar Land Rover to build a new gigafactory at its Bridgewater site in Somerset will come with significant government subsidies attached. The UK’s automotive sector provides employment for around 800,000 people but is at risk of falling behind other countries in the transition of supply chains to support future EV production growth. While the new gigafactory site could provide up to 9,000 new jobs, more importantly it might also provide the stimulus for a wider government-backed plan to build out the UK’s EV supply chain. We will see over the next 2-3 years whether that proves too little too late but this would be a very significant step along the way.  


Top