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Jaguar is asking for government aid for new investment.

 

Jaguar logo.
Jag­uar Land Rover owner Tata Motors is demand­ing more than £500mn of gov­ern­ment aid to build a new bat­tery fact­ory in Bri­tain, in a decision labelled as «pivotal» for the future of the UK car industry.

People briefed on dis­cus­sions say the Indian group is close to choos­ing between Spain and south-west Eng­land for its plant and has given min­is­ters «weeks» to pledge fin­an­cial sup­port.

They added that the total value of aid sought by Tata exceeded £500mn, includ­ing grants and sup­port pack­ages such as assist­ance for energy costs and research fund­ing.

The move, by the largest employer in the Brit­ish car industry, presents the gov­ern­ment with a choice over how much sup­port to give the sec­tor as it struggles to make the trans­ition from pet­rol and diesel cars to mass-mar­ket elec­tric vehicles.

The group has sig­ni­fic­antly increased the amount of state sup­port it is seek­ing since talks with the gov­ern­ment began, said people close to the nego­ti­ations.

«This is very dif­fi­cult for the gov­ern­ment,» said one.

Tata is examin­ing a part­ner­ship with Chinese bat­tery maker Envi­sion that would involve the group build­ing and run­ning a fact­ory in Somer­set to sup­ply JLR’s new range of elec­tric cars.

Des­pite new invest­ments by Nis­san, Stel­lantis and Ford in elec­tric vehicle tech­no­logy, the UK has struggled to attract bat­tery com­pan­ies to set up factor­ies. As a result, car pro­duc­tion in the UK dwindled last year to its low­est level since the 1950s, fol­low­ing the clos­ure of Honda’s plant in Swin­don.

The gov­ern­ment has set aside £850mn to attract bat­tery makers and has sev­eral other fin­an­cial sup­port schemes it could draw on to entice investors.

Min­is­ters provided more than £100mn to Nis­san for elec­tric invest­ment at its fact­ory in Sun­der­land, while Stel­lantis received about £30mn to make elec­tric vans in Ellesmere Port.

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Comments

  1. Robert1 March 2023 at 14:34

    You can't do much with just £850mn. I mean, come on? You need a few billion for such a crucial endeavor.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brandon1 March 2023 at 16:35

      Exactly! They are spending billions on who knows what but they have less than 1 billion to invest in attracting battery makers? This is such an important area for the UK right now and they are not even trying to fix it.

      Delete
    2. Marvin1 March 2023 at 16:55

      They need to invest closer to 10 billions if they want to get this up and running. Otherwise car production in the UK will continue to dwindle in 2023 and 2024.

      Delete

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