UK’s first gigafactory saved from brink of collapse before production has even started

Mr Johnson made the first funding commitment back in January through the Government’s Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF), a programme worth up to £1billion created to support large-scale industrialisation and for the development of a high-value EV supply chain in the UK, of which Britishvolt was promised a £100million slice. 

With the help of Government support, it had been expected that the plant in Northumberland would create 300,000 electric battery packs a year if all goes to plan, and would employ 3,000 people and support 8,000 jobs in the region. It is set to be a huge testament to the “UK’s place at the helm of the global green industrial revolution”, according to Mr Johnson.

But the firm had ran into difficutlites, citing soaring energy costs as a reason why the startup had been forced to delay production by a total of 18 months, pushing it back to mid-2025.

Orral Nadjari, the co-founder and former CEO of Britisholt, told the Financial Times back in August: “It does go hand-in-hand with the fact that we have inflation, we have a recession and we have geopolitical uncertainties. The main facility will be delayed slightly into mid-2025.”

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Article source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1690320/uk-first-gigafactory-britishvolt-blyth-northumberland-electric-car-batteries-latest