Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Jul 23, 2025

Britishvolt gets £100m boost to build UK’s first large-scale ‘gigafactory’

Britishvolt gets £100m boost to build UK’s first large-scale ‘gigafactory’

The deal to build an electric car battery plant near Blyth will bring up to 3,000 jobs to the area by 2028

The UK government will invest £100m in Britishvolt as the car battery manufacturing startup seeks to build Britain’s first large-scale “gigafactory” in the north-east of England.

The government’s Automotive Transformation Fund will invest alongside asset management company Abrdn and its majority-owned property investment arm, Tritax, to fund a sale and leaseback deal for the huge building that will house the electric car battery factory, near Blyth in Northumberland.

Peter Rolton, Britishvolt’s executive chairman, said: “The UK automotive industry needs a local source of batteries. Chinese or other Asian imports are not going to be an option. There will be very, very significant shortfalls of batteries. We are absolutely vital to maintain the UK industry and support those jobs.”

An artist impression of the Britishvolt factory, the first full scale UK battery gigaplant.


Britishvolt is one of two major UK battery manufacturing projects that has secured funding, alongside an expansion of an existing plant at Sunderland owned by China’s Envision that supplies to Nissan.

The company is hoping to build the plant rapidly with the aim of supplying a large part of the UK car industry’s needs as it transitions from internal combustion engines to electric cars that produce zero exhaust emissions. It is in talks with several potential clients, and sportscar maker Lotus has signed a memorandum of understanding, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

The plant will employ about 3,000 workers when it is at full capacity in around 2028. The first batteries are scheduled to start production in 2024 to take advantage of rising demand ahead of the UK’s 2030 ban on new cars without a battery.

The government and Britishvolt declined to detail the size of the government investment, citing commercial confidentiality. However, a source with knowledge of the negotiations said it was worth about £100m.

The government-funded Advanced Propulsion Centre calculates that the UK will need to produce batteries with a capacity of 90 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year if it is to retain a car industry of a similar size. Current UK production capacity is less than 2GWh, but Britishvolt hopes to produce 30GWh.

Local authorities in the West Midlands and Somerset are trying to attract investors to two more potential battery manufacturing sites. The West Midlands site at Coventry airport last week gained pre-emptive planning permission.

Rolton said: “The company was still working on the timing of a planned stock market listing which will raise the money to build the production line. The full project is expected to cost £3.8bn, but the government backing has already helped in conversations with potential investors.”


Britishvolt has previously won backing from Glencore, the FTSE 100 miner, and preparatory construction work at the 93-hectare site has begun.

Securing investment in UK-based battery manufacturing has been an important goal for the government. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, has on several occasions referred to his hopes for the project as part of his plans to “level up” parts of the country that have missed out on investment in recent decades.

The plant will be based in the constituency of Wansbeck, narrowly retained by Labour in the 2019 general election. It is next door to Blyth Valley, a seat formerly part of Labour’s “red wall”, which voted in a Conservative MP for the first time in that election.

Johnson said the plan “is a strong testament to the skilled workers of the north-east and the UK’s place at the helm of the global green industrial revolution”. He added that the factory will “boost the production of electric vehicles in the UK”.

Rolton said Britishvolt had taken part in a jobs fair in the area which prompted “queues round the block”, while some parents even took children out of school to attend. “That’s what it means for the area,” he said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
×