Britishvolt close to collapse
The Blyth Britishvolt gigaplant had planned to exclusively use renewable energy, including the potential to use hydro-electric power generated in Norway and transmitted 447 miles under the North Sea (Photo: Nick Collins; Pexels)
The Financial Times is reporting that UK battery firm Britishvolt is close to collapse after £100 million of funding for its £3.8 billion electric vehicle battery gigafactory failed to materialise.
Automotive leaders and analysts had always questioned the company’s strategy of setting up a factory before securing firm orders from a car manufacturer, rather than the established industry pattern of finding a customer and then building a plant.
At the centre of the current crisis is £100 million UK government ministers promised Britishvolt. However, according to the Financial Times, “the funding was only to be drawn down as construction work hit a certain milestone, which has not yet been reached.”
Sky News didn’t offer as much detail, but did cite an unnamed source as saying that Britishvolt’s collapse was directly connected to the missing £100 million Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF) funding, funding established to bolster the transition to electric vehicles.
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