With electric vehicle (EV) and battery makers increasingly keen to co-locate production, the future of the UK automotive industry hinges on our ability to scale up production capacity with a new generation of gigafactories. Jon Excell reports
In the desert just outside of Reno, Nevada, stands a building that, seen from above, dominates the otherwise featureless landscape and – in terms of its footprint – dwarfs pretty much any other building on the planet.
This is Tesla’s Gigafactory 1, a vast lithium ion battery factory set up to satisfy the firm’s sky-rocketing domestic demand for electric vehicle (EV) batteries and, through economies of scale, fulfil its vision to bring affordable electric motoring to the masses.

When complete the facility is expected to have an annual battery production capacity of 150GWh per year, enough for 1.5 million cars. Add this impressive boast to the Tesla CEO’s famed knack for generating publicity, and it’s no surprise that the plant has attracted a fair amount of international attention. But Gigafactory1 is by no means the only show in town.
Indeed, around the world, in a bid to drive down costs and simplify supply chains, battery manufacturers and car makers are in a fevered race to establish similarly vast facilities to produce the cells, modules and packs that will power the EV revolution.
Whilst Asia remains the stronghold (China alone is projected to hit 800GWh of annual manufacturing capacity by 2025) Europe is expanding rapidly. Based on current plans – which include the construction of facilities in Germany, Sweden, Poland and Hungary – continental Europe will have 450GWh / year of production by the end of the decade.
But to the growing of concern of many in the UK, there are currently no firm plans for this country to follow suit: something of a surprise given its growing EV manufacturing base and historic expertise in the field (the lithium battery was invented in Oxford and the battery plant alongside Nissan’s Sunderland car factory was once the first of its kind in the Europe).

To give a sense of how rapidly things have moved on, whilst that same plant (now owned by Chinese firm Envision) remains the UK’s largest facility, its annual 2GWh capacity is dwarfed by the scale of the planned pipeline elsewhere in Europe. For example, Chinese firm CATL – one of the world’s largest providers of EV batteries – hopes to reach 60GWh at its main German site by the middle of the decade.
In a recent report, the UK’s Faraday Institution (a £78m initiative set up through the government’s £274m Faraday Challenge fund to drive developments in battery technology) warns that a failure to scale up could have disastrous consequences for the UK car industry. The fear is that as vehicle producers switch to producing greater volumes of electric vehicles, and wind down internal combustion engine production, the high cost of importing batteries (which can account for around 40 per cent of the value of an EV) will erode the commercial case for making cars here.

To avert this scenario, and tap into the huge opportunity presented by the UK’s growing EV market, the group claims that the UK will need to build at least seven 20GWh gigafactories by 2040. The question is: can it be done, and is there the political and industrial will to make it happen?
Faraday Institution CEO Neil Morris is relatively optimistic about the prospect, and told The Engineer that whilst the clock is definitely ticking, a combination of existing expertise and government support make the UK an attractive destination for battery investment.
Perhaps the most obvious of these attractions is the UK’s current position as Europe’s fourth largest vehicle manufacturer. And whilst failure to invest in battery scale up could see it drop down the rankings, Morris believes that the existing base is attractive to investors keen to tap into ready markets for their technology. “One of the key criteria battery manufacturers look to when placing a battery factory is proximity to car manufacturing,” he said. He added that the UK’s aforementioned historical pedigree – though in many senses an all too familiar tale of missed opportunities – is also a positive that has created a legacy of skilled workers and facilities that offer a strong platform to build on.
What’s more, whilst it may not yet have a Gigafactory the UK does have some existing and planned manufacturing capability. As well as the Sunderland Envision site, a new battery assembly centre at Jaguar Land Rover’s Hams Hall site, that will produce units for its next generation of electric vehicles, is expected to begin operation shortly.
There is also some interesting activity at the lower-volume end of the scale, perhaps most notably through HyperBat a joint venture between Unipart and Williams Advanced Engineering to manufacture batteries for high performance electric cars including Aston Martin’s Rapid E.
And it’s not all about automotive. Battery pack assembly specialist HyperDrive, which is based next door to the Envision ASEC factory in Sunderland, has enjoyed unprecedented growth by developing battery packs and battery management systems for customers including JCB and cherry-picker specialist Snorkel – a reminder that the opportunity for UK battery manufacturers is expanding all of the time. “We’re hanging on the coat-tails of the huge investment in automotive battery cells and we’ve engineered our product around those,” said Hyperdrive MD and founder Stephen Irish.

Perhaps surprisingly, the UK also has some of the key elements of the battery supply chain already in place in the form of some of the largest suppliers of materials for producing electrodes and electrolytes. “We have a chemicals industry in the UK that is potentially well set up to supply into a battery manufacturing industry,” said Morris. “They’ll need to invest and make slightly different products, but we already export graphite to China so that they can make batteries to sell back to us!” Pointing to a 2019 report commissioned by the Advanced Propulsion Centre and Innovate UK (Automotive Batteries – April 2019) he added that a scale up of UK battery manufacture would provide a major boost for this sector, potentially opening up £4.8bn per year market share.
Other less immediately obvious attractions include the UK’s relatively nimble approach to planning and infrastructure development – a key factor for ambitious Asian battery giants not used to too many obstacles ; and also the growing role of renewables in the energy mix. “There’s no point making loads of batteries from dirty coal fired power station in Poland,” he said. “It’s definitely on the mind of the battery manufacturers.”
Perhaps the biggest strength though, from Morris’ perspective, is the strength of the UK research base, and the degree to which different academic and industry groups are collaborating with each other. And the Faraday Institution, which was established to accelerate the commercial impact of this research base, is at the heart of this dynamic.
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Since being established in 2017, the body has launched nine major research programmes spanning 22 universities and involving multiple industry partners, any one of which, said Morris, could develop into a world leading battery technology company.
A number of these projects are focused on improving the performance of lithium-ion batteries. For instance, The University of Sheffield led FutureCat project, and the University of Bath’s CATMAT initiative are both at looking at ways of improving the cathode to get more energy into the battery. Another initiative, led by the University of Cambridge – is exploring the causes of battery degradation and failure in order to try to understand how to extend the life of batteries.
There are also a number of projects looking at different battery technologies. Researchers at St Andrews University, for instance, are exploring the potential of Sodium Ion batteries, whilst the Oxford led SOLBAT initiative is making major strides in solid state battery development – something of a holy grail for energy storage. “They are potentially much higher performance and much safer because they don’t have a flammable liquid electrolyte,” said Morris.
A further project, Nextrode, also led by Oxford, is looking at how battery performance could be enhanced by improvements in electrode manufacturing processes. “If we can improve the microstructure without changing any of the materials we might get significantly better performance and that means having significantly better control over the manufacturing,” he explained.
All of this activity, said Morris, is helping to build the UK’s profile on the world stage: “These projects are attracting interest from car and battery manufacturers. That tells me we’re doing something right, and it has the potential of attracting some of them to invest here. I know there is at least one battery manufacturer who sees having early access to having some of the technology we might develop as being a potential incentive to come here.”
Whilst the Faraday Institution is driving the development of new battery technologies, another Faraday Challenge funded initiative – the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) – is exploring the challenges of taking these technologies into production.
From its 20,000 square metre facility close to Coventry airport, the £129m centre, which was grown out of work carried out at the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), is aimed at both proving the manufacturability of emerging battery technologies and helping innovative battery companies take their technologies into production.

As former general manager of Nissan’s battery plant the new centre’s MD, Jeff Pratt, knows more than most about the challenges of manufacturing batteries at scale. And whilst UKBIC is on a much smaller scale than a gigafactory it does contain most of the technologies you would expect to find in one (see box out). What’s more, it is able to produce batteries at industrial rates. “The key for UKBIC is demonstrate that you can manufacture at a rate that is capable of being marketed” said Pratt. “You can develop a technology in the lab which looks very promising but if you can’t manufacture at that rate you can’t get it to market.”
Though NDAs prohibit him from naming them, Pratt confirmed that the centre already has a number of firms signed up who want to use the facility to produce cells to test and prove there’s a demand in the market before they invest further. He’s also hopeful that some of the larger battery manufacturers will outsource development work to the site. “As facilities become more utilised worldwide there’s less opportunity for them to develop a new project, take the line down and try something out.”
It’s clear that the joined-up nature of the UK battery ecosystem has created a fertile climate for innovation, and one which should be appealing to large battery firms.
But according to Pratt getting them to take the next step and invest is likely to require incentives of the kind seen elsewhere in Europe. Germany and France recently announced 1billion and 700 million euros of financial support, whilst Poland and Hungary have set up special economic zones offering tax relief to EV battery producers. “In September last year the government announced a £1bn fund to support getting the first Gigafactory on the ground , it now needs to flesh out what this means in practice and what form that support should take,” he said.

Getting the first factory over the line is the tricky bit. But once that’s in place Pratt believes there will be a snowball effect. “Once you set up the supply chain and have the first gigafactory – it’s relatively easy to expand that one or build others,” he said.
However, with this snowball effect already beginning to happen elsewhere in Europe, it’s becoming doubly the critical that the UK moves quickly. “There is a sense of urgency here,” said Morris, “We are falling further behind. A lot of capacity has been announced in Europe particularly in and around Germany and our government was probably a bit slower to announce incentives. There is no doubt that the uncertainty around Brexit last year and the distraction that that caused for the government means that we do need to pick up the pace.”

Failure to do so, he said, could lead to something of a doomsday scenario for the UK car industry. “If you’re importing all of the batteries to then export the vehicle – which is about 80 per cent of our car production – just from a supply perspective why would you import half the value of the vehicle? Why not just make the vehicle closer to where the market is? If the batteries are all being made somewhere else then maybe over time car production migrates to where the battery production is and you lose a lot of jobs.”
It’s an unsettling thought. But Morris is optimistic that there’s an appetite across government and industry to rise to the occasion. “EV manufacturers would very much like the UK to have battery manufacturing to support them making more EVs in the facilities they have here in the UK. And I think that government wants to secure the jobs, and secure a position in part of the energy mix of the future and to be a major player in battery production and battery technology development.”
Pratt is similarly upbeat about the UK’s prospects: “We definitely have the demand here. We’ve got some large OEMs such as Nissan in the north east and JLR in the midlands, and that’s just in automotive. Provided we make it attractive for companies to invest in the UK and bring the large-scale manufacturing here there isn’t any reason why we shouldn’t get our share of that future investment.”
Featured image credit: Ra2Studio via stock.adobe.com
How to build a lithium-ion battery
There are four distinct steps in the lithium-ion battery production process.
Electrode manufacturing
To form the electrodes precise doses of anode and cathode materials are mixed into a slurry with water and solvents which is carefully coated onto metallic foils to form the electrodes (copper for the anode, and aluminium for the cathode). These foils are dried in an oven and formed into a large roll in a “calendaring” process. This roll is then fed into a slitting machine where it is broken down into smaller rolls to make the electrodes required for the cells.
Cell assembly
This is where the anode and cathode materials are assembled into a single unit. Although there is a common set of fundamental steps, assembly processes vary depending on the type of cell that’s being made. The most widely used packaging style is the cylindrical cell – the familiar tubular cylinder – but there is a growing demand for pouch cells and prismatic cells which potentially take up less space and which require different assembly techniques.
Formation and ageing
One the cell has been assembled and the electrolyte added it’s time to set the cell chemistry. During this stage the cell is allowed to stand for period of time to let the electrolyte soak around it, before going through a number of charging and heating processes.
Module and pack assembly
Finally, it’s time to bundle up the cells for the end-customer. In this part of the process multiple cells are connected together to form a module, and modules are connected together to form a pack. For context, the 40kWh battery used in the latest version of Nissan Leaf uses 24 modules, each consisting of 8 cells.
How about building it in Cornwall, where lithium mining is under investigation. I suspect a source of employment there would be welcome.
UK should aim to take the global lead on everything for the modern electrified world including the development of the massive infrastructures needed to support it. And Phil, you are absolutely right, we in Devon and Cornwall would welcome a potentially huge source of skilled employment!
Good luck. Betcha the tariffs between the EU and the UK sink everything. We’re just ‘avin’ a chat about it, everyone else is getting on with doing it. As always, the train has left the station already.
Why would the EU want to impose tariffs on *our* goods when we are such an important customer of *theirs*? Your point is as illogical as it is silly.
With current UK car production at 1.5m pa, why would we need 130GWh of battery production by 2040? Assuming that date is used beacuse HMG says no more ICEVs will be sold by then (implying they’ll all be electric), that the average EV battery is 40kWh (not an unreasonable assumption given that, by then, motorists will have been weened off the silly notion that to be at all viable they all have to have at least a 300 mile range) and ignoring the fact that lots of EV batteries are already made here (as well as the liklihood that car use – and therefore sales – will fall significantly by then anyway), the real figure is near 60GWh (1.5m x 40kWh). Anyway, 2040 is a long way away and *anything* could happen by then!
Didn’t think i would be this cynical before i hit 30 but i cannot see the UK gaining a significant share of battery manufacturing. What is more likely is our usual model of having R&D centres employing a few hundred staff(in the usual high tech regions of the UK) to innovate in the sector while batteries are built elsewhere.
Even when the tesla gigafactory was announced in Berlin there was only disappointment that the UK wasn’t chosen for a R&D facility, rather than the actual location of the factory.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50400068
The article says there is a 2GWh plant in the UK then says we don’t have one?
The article states that the UK doesn’t have a gigafactory. The Faraday Institution defines Gigafactories as being 20Gwh on average. Apologies if there was a lack of clarity.
At the present rate of expansion of EV’s, and the seemingly single reliance on lithium battery technology, how long will the lithium last? what will be the long term environmental impact of mining and refining it? I am concerned that there is too much focus on EV’s and not enough on reducing the need to travel so much particularly for commuting to/from the workplace.
The advice that leading Earth Scientists gave to the Climate Change Committee a year ago (https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html ) was ignored then. It appears that it’s is still being ignored.
Is that because it’s too inconvenient?
Dear editor,
The two UK USPs for building a Gigafactory is the lithium (and a bit of cobalt) in Cornwall and the car manufacturers in the Midlands and the North East. You need to add into the article the ongoing mining exploration for the raw materials happening in Cornwall.
Many thanks, John
Lithium is quite abundant. In fact in Nevada a new resource has been discovered and they hope to start mining there next year . The resource is expected to supply all US needs til 2068
Thanks so much for the article. It was interesting to read about the vision of future electric transport infrastructure in Britain. Undoubtedly, batteries will be very popular in electric vehicles. The large scale of production, which directly correlates with the final price of the goods, is also important. The source of electricity for charging electric vehicles is also important – I’m sure offshore generation will play a role here. Little information about the solid-state batteries.
I believe the Aston Martin Rapide-E has been cancelled unfortunately.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/aston-martin-shelves-production-plans-rapide-e-electric-saloon
With regards to Gigafactories, Tesla is in the process of updating its factories to Terafactories i.e. Terrawatthour’s worth of batteries, maybe we need to re-think our ambitions 🙂 All will be revealed in the upcoming Tesla battery day where they will be anoouncing new battery tech including the million mile battery, dry cathode technology and cell to pack which should reduce the cost of the battery packs and make them last 4000 cycles instead of 1000 cycles.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billroberson/2020/05/20/tesla-roundup-hot-stock-bigger-terafactories-better-battery-tech-fremont-factory-reopens/#5b6621064322
Just a note on materials used. Whilst wishing Cornwall and Devon all the best for economic success, please don’t think that having a commodityvresource ( as lithium is) nearby adds anything to feasibility since all metals trade at world commodity prices ( if not then tin mining would still be happening in Cornwall along side world beating tin solder makers located there)
Exactly. Tesla are already her with the new battery tech. And will most likely be producing sooner than later, as their hiring and bought new equipment for their Fremont factory.
Battery development has certainly been rapid and impressive, largely through Teslas’ investments. The Faraday Institute growth projections are massive but, of course the future remains unwritten. I’m always a bit suspicious of grandiose projections far ahead as they are more hope than fact.
However, my own interest is more in power generation than vehicles and it still looks unlikely that batteries will be feasible as real back-up in that sector in the near future. The UK power security is truly in the balance as the only storage in the UK is Pumped storage as at Dinorwig and solid fuel at the few remaining coal fired stations. Gas imports, wind power, solar power and interconnector imports can all vanish quickly under adverse situations. In this situation the UK’s pumped storage capacity would provide about 10 GWh out of a daily usage of about 1000 GWh. Even the Tesla Giga factory’s 150 GWh/y production could not cover one day of gas curtailment with no wind or solar. The UK desperately needs more coal-fired power stations, as has been recognised in Germany and Japan, to provide the lowest cost power and real security of supply. The Covid crisis has shown clearly that in a crisis you cannot expect other countries to help
Can I assume the train leaving the station was electrically powered?
In all of this the elephant in the conservatory is the future level of reliable and cost effective generating capacity. Wind and solar are intermittent however these options are dressed up. Overnight solar….now there is a challenge.
I can already see the local authorities rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the council tax that they would like to inflict on the companies who would like to invest in this country. Having seen the effect that council tax has on small companies it makes me wonder why anyone would invest in Great Britain.
I think this battery powered boat sailed in 2016.
Greg Clark as Business minister did his utmost to attract electric vehicle manufacturing to the UK, but always facing an uphill struggle after the Brexit vote. His successor is in the cabinet solely for their views on Brexit, so don’t expect much help from there.
Just found this, not sure of the accuracy:-
“Battery manufacturer Britishvolt has chosen South Wales as one of the locations for the first gigafactory in the UK.
The UK battery industry is expected to be worth £5bn by 2025, with the growth of electric vehicles driving a demand for lithium ion cells. This is expected to increase as the UK government works to meet its Road to Zero target by 2050. Factories that produce lithium ion batteries are referred to as gigafactories.
The company has narrowed down the location of the 30 plus GWh gigafactory from 42 locations to two, with Bro Tathan business park in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales, named as one of the locations.
Once built, the battery gigafactory will be the first in the UK, and will have one of the largest footprints in Europe. “
But a doddle, compared to the six or seven fold decrease in insolation from summer to winter
Nice factsheet (PDF download) on lithium reserves and resources (important distinction!) by the British Geological Survey: https://www.bgs.ac.uk/downloads/start.cfm?id=3100
Interesting. If we want to invest in a manufacturing process that uses expensive and scarce resources, with no thought for the disposal of the dead batteries afterwards, I don’t see our accountant-led manufacturers doing this. Where is the joined up thinking? To make batteries practical, a standard battery pack interchangeable between all car models would be a sensible starting point, so that recharging becomes a swap in, swap out process. Then perhaps the UK government could invest and own the manufacturing at arms length control, and make some money for us. Chances of all this happening – NIL. Chances of everyone whinging about it for ever – 100%. The reality is that ICE vehicles are the practical and essential present / short-term future.
You make no mention of the “AUSTIN” radical EV battery concept that could make lithium type batteries that despite the attribution of being green friendly, are obscenely expensive in both production and disposal costs, redundant.
Lithium type batteries are grossly destructive to the environment and thus a con against the motorist and society at large.
Aren’t we just swapping one environmental problem for another ?
Battery development and disposal isn’t being seriously considered and charge time and temperature affects on performance makes them impractical, IMO.
Tyre wear is a major cause of pollution that needs tackling particularly if car weight is increased by batteries.
The technology exists to make ICE clean and more efficient !!
If the EV fantasy is to become a reality we need to do a lot more to make sure our electric generation capability is up to par.
And finally, cost is the main driver for Joe public.
John Gallagher Nov 21, 10.45pm
As so often happens we invent the technology but fail to capitalise. Can we possibly catch up with Tesla? Perhaps the government needs a rethink. It has a special talent for U-turns. If ICEs can be made cleaner and more efficient is there a case for the UK to focus its car manufacturing on the hybrid market with the EV element for cities and cleaned fuel for journeys?