UKH

With the collapse of Britishvolt (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64303149) what’s the prognosis for battery manufacturing in the uk. Was this a case of a bad company or are there structural reasons why it’s not viable for the uk to produce these batteries; the demand is obviously there and we have expertise and R&D capability but I’ve not seen too much detail on the reasons for the collapse.
Is this something that warrants nationalisation or at least strong subsidy from the govt or are there plenty of battery manufactures in nations that we can rely on to be allies for a while, i.e. not China?

In reply to Tyler:

I think this company was always a sham.  A device to pocket government grants, con investors and enrich the promoters.

Would would have guessed?

In reply to lowersharpnose:

I did wonder about that when I heard the govt had initially promised to invest £100 million but then withdrew. 

In reply to lowersharpnose:

Probably true, or at least over optimistic because everyone wanted it.  A lesson for government to keep out of such things.  They have to stand on their own feet, don't support a lame duck however much you want to.  Invest in infrastructure, not enterprise.

In reply to David Riley:

what ? And make it slightly harder for rishi , tezza , boz , tezza , and their mates to trouser 100 s of millions ? Are you mad ? 

The founders of Britishvolt were trying to create a £4bn facility, from scratch, without the backing of a major manufacturer.

Probably says it all. Even with £100 million promised from the Government, that's a drop in the ocean.

The US has just invested huge amounts to bring chip making back to the US. Highly controversial, but probably what's needed if there's the political will.

I can't imagine the revolving door of Government ministers has exactly helped.

In reply to Tyler:

They had no contract with a car manufacturer for start. Compare them to their Swedish rivals who have an order book of $50billion and a lot better story......

In reply to lowersharpnose:

Maybe......though having worked in the supply chain with British Volt, the contacts I had within the company at management level appeared committed to making it a success. 

In reply to Paulhesketh:

I'm sure there were plenty of people who had good intentions of making a success out of the project.

But I had my doubts from the beginning that it could ever be successful. 

Building a manufacturing facility in the UK without any agreements with OEMs or any obvious route to commercialisation made no sense, especially with the regulatory uncertainty of a UK facility vs a European one. 

In reply to David Riley:

To be fair to the government, they were at least smart enough to make the investment conditional, and they withheld the investment when the conditions (predictably) weren't met.

Government investment in a successful giga factory would have the potential to pay for itself many times over so I don't think it is right to criticise investment in battery manufacturing facilities per se. But this one was never likely to succeed so criticism for the time/money wasted on this project are justified. 

In reply to galpinos:

Or BMW who are building a billion euro battery plant in Hungary and another in Bavaria.....

Apart from other economic considerations batteries are inherently heavy so building them near the car factories makes sense.

In reply to Tyler:

It's the usual elephant in the room. There's a reason why most European countries are not struggling in the same way to finance and progress manufacturing facilities. 

The company had huge issues too but the UK has been a much riskier location to invest in these facilities than other countries. 

The big concern regarding batteries is going to be the lithium supply rather than the manufacturing. China has a stranglehold on lithium mining, lithium refining capacity, and the technology/expertise necessary to refine lithium. The rest of the world (both countries and OEMs) were asleep at the wheel and there is not sufficient time now to act before the lithium supply squeeze hits in 5-10 years. 

I'm not sure it will be safe to rely on allied countries once the supply squeeze starts to really hurt. 

In reply to SDM:

Which is why the smart money is on accelerating aluminium chemistry cells to market.  

I couldn’t get my head around actually building a production line without a customer; there’s a lot of big decisions and finickety process optimisation that depend on the precise chemistry, format and packaging specified by the customer, and optimising those is important.  
 

In reply to wintertree:

see my post above.

In reply to jimtitt:

Hungary's only assembly though isn't it? No CAM production? No idea about Bavaria.

It does make sense, but the CAM for Tesla's Panasonic batteries that are assembled in China comes from Finland!

Seems I stepped sideways into Battery Materials at the right time.....

In reply to Tyler:  Not necessarily a bad company but ineffective support from the government.  They didn't have a deal with a manufacturer but a government can help with that, and the general environment/infrastructure as well as hard cash. 

Brexit obviously doesn't help either, or at least it removes one of the advantages a european manufacturer has over a chinese equivalent.  The lack of deal with a manufacturer isn't necessarily a killer, but you then need to demonstrate you are flexible enough to make what they want.  The downside of waiting for a manufacturer to commit before you start doing anything should be bleedin' obvious...

'we have expertise and R&D capability ' - so you say, but I'd like to see some hard evidence of this at some point from the UK

In reply to jimtitt:

And within the trade/tariff borders of the major customers, pay your taxes on moving the low value raw materials, not the high value finished product. Britain is literally metaphorically an island after brexit.

jk

In reply to Tyler:

It will be fine - we're building new transport infrastructure based on the technology of the 1800's.  Who needs batteries when you've spaffed all your money on a railway so that a few hundred people a day can go from A to B  and back again a bit faster than they could before?

In reply to nniff:

Not making any point,  but it seems like a quote from 1800's.

Why spend money on a railway to go from A to B a bit faster than on a perfectly good canal.

In reply to nniff: Well actually because your rail based transport infrastructure is a bit rubbish and line limited to the early 20th century.  But that never gets mentioned...

In reply to wbo2:

Doesn't suit the anti-HS2 narrative. Pick the strawman (speed) and ignore the capacity improvements, the reason it's actually needed.

In reply to galpinos:

There are no HS2 capacity improvements when it's cheaper and takes the same space to build two lines at fast but a bit less fast than HS2 speed. Plus we don't need the capacity as much between Brum and and the capital as we do elsewhere.