- Chinese Lithium-ion battery manufacturer EVE Energy is reportedly set to make a £1.2bn investment into a site in Coventry, which could be the largest in the country yet.
- Whilst the site will initially open with the capacity to produce 20GWh worth of batteries per year, subsequent investments could see this figure rise to 60GWh.
- The developments, which were originally revealed by The Sunday Times, could provide a big incentive for electric OEMs to choose the UK as their production grounds.
A big charge up for Britain’s battery industry
After Tata recently announced its plans to build a new battery gigafactory within the UK, EVE Energy is now in late talks with the government on signing an agreement to build the facilities. The battery manufacturer is set to make an initial £1.2b investment, which will be backed up by government subsidies, as we also saw in the Tata project. The site will initially have a 20GWh annual capacity. To put that number into perspective, it could support the equivalent of around 250,000 80kWh EVs, assuming that all batteries produced went into EV applications.
However, when capacity rises to 60GWh in later stages of the site, it would make it the largest of its kind in the UK, beating both the Tata and AESC sites. That level of production will be greatly welcomed, with the government estimating that the country will need 200GWh of capacity to keep up demand for electric vehicles and battery storage projects.
EVE has previously signed agreements with BMW to supply batteries for its EVs, opening a site in Hungary within close proximity to a BMW factory. This brings into question whether this site could also support the MINI Oxford factory, just 60 miles down the road, once it begins EV production – of which where it will source batteries is still unknown.
