End of an EV dream after American private equity giant buys ‘gigafactory’ site
The abandoned site of a once-planned massive £3.8 billion factory has been sold in a blow to the UK’s electric car industry.
US private equity giant Blackstone has agreed to purchase the 235-hectare site in Northumberland, where it plans to turn it into one of Europe’s largest data centres.
Professor David Bailey, a car industry expert at Birmingham University’s business school, called it a ‘missed opportunity for British battery manufacturing’.
The deal dashes any hopes that the site will become an important part of the transition of car production from petrol and diesel to electric.
Gigafactories are making batteries for electric cars and Britain needs more of them if it is to compete in an era when the assembly lines that produce combustion engines today are becoming obsolete.
Sold: Plans for a massive electric car battery factory on a disused site in Blyth, Northumberland (pictured), were abandoned when Britishvolt, the company behind the project, collapsed
Council officials say plans for a data center at the Northumberland site could create more than 1,600 jobs.
Automotive industry experts had seen the site – formerly home to the Blyth Power Station – as ideal for a giant factory.
There were plans to build one until Britishvolt, the company behind the project, collapsed last year.
Australian company Recharge Industries later took control of the company but faced a liquidation petition last month.
Official liquidators of business recovery specialist Begbies Traynor yesterday announced the sale of the site to Blackstone for an undisclosed sum.
Bob Maxwell of Begbies Traynor said: ‘From a difficult situation, the future sale will ensure a very bright future for the site.’
But Bailey said: ‘The location is ideal for building a massive factory on the site of the old Blyth Power Station.
‘This has sufficient infrastructure for an energy-hungry battery factory and a rail link to the port terminal – ideal for importing components and exporting batteries.
Losing it to other applications is a real missed opportunity for UK battery production as we will need more gigafactories to support UK car production.”
Industry figures show that Britain will need a massive factory capacity of 60 to 90 GWh by 2030 to meet its target of producing one million electric vehicles per year.
Capacity now stands at 2 GWh – sourced from the Envision plant in Sunderland.
Britishvolt’s gigafactory could have added 38 GWh to that total. However, Envision’s plans to expand to 12 GWh and a new 40 GWh site to be built by Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata should still bring UK capacity to 52 GWh by 2026.