Gulf Today

Brexit Britain which is running low on battery power faces an acid test as EU races ahead

- Nick Carey and Barbara Lewis,

Britain has set a fast pace in the electric vehicle race with its 2030 ban on sales of new fossil fuel-powered cars and has offered 1 billion pounds to jump start its batery industry and associated supply chain. But the cash and the headline-grabbing deadline — which is sooner than many other nations by several years — still leaves it trailing the European Union’s drive to create a supply chain and far behind China, the electric vehicle (EV) batery leader.

The stakes are high for Brexit Britain. To keep selling into the 27-nation EU without tariffs, Britain’s car industry, which employs 170,000 people, must ensure electric vehicles and the bateries that power them meet stringent rules of origin — with up to 70% of input in value terms coming from Britain or inside the EU.

With its 2030 deadline looming followed by its 2035 cut off for hybrids, Britain needs more batery factories — and fast.

Yet, even Nissan’s plans for a 9 gigawat hour (GWH) batery plant in Britain — hailed by the government when it was announced in July — are dwarfed by two plants being built in Germany alone, Tesla’s 50 GWH plant near Berlin and Volkswagen’s 40 GWH factory near Wolfsburg.

“We have come rather late to the party,” said Douglas Johnson-poensgen, chief executive of Britain’s Circulor, who has worked with Volvo Cars and others on building sustainabl­e supply chains.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), at the heart of Britain’s EV investment drive, says it is ensuring Britain remains a world leader in the auto industry.

“We remain dedicated to securing UK gigafactor­ies, and continue to work with investors to progress plans to mass manufactur­e the bateries needed for the next generation of electric vehicles,” a spokespers­on said in an emailed statement.

Meanwhile, the EU is powering ahead to catch up with China and transform its car industry, a major employer across the bloc, including in heavyweigh­ts Germany and France.

The bloc, which has proposed an effective ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035, has allocated 2.9 billion euros from 12 EU states to support new batery plants. European climate group Transport & Environmen­t says the EU has 38 plants planned or being built, many benefiting from other support measures from the EU or individual government­s.

The bloc has identified 42 companies, including US company Tesla and Germany’s BMW, for specific roles in the batery supply chain and lifecycle, ranging from supplying raw materials to producing cells or recycling them.

Last year, the European Commission proposed laws to ensure sustainabl­e batery production, while Germany has passed a supply chain law on the lifecycle of bateries, with plants to stay close together, helping meet environmen­tal rules and containing costs. Bateries are heavy items to transport.

Britain has yet to match this, although BEIS said it was working on implementi­ng green goals for the auto industry and would publish an infrastruc­ture strategy this year, including on vehicle charging, and proposals on road transport emissions.

But manufactur­ers say Britain is not moving switly enough.

“The UK government needs to wake up and invest in the supply chain,” said Mat Windle, managing director of British sports carmaker Lotus. “We’ve got the knowledge, we’ve got the people, we just need the supply chain.”

Guy Winter, a partner at Fasken who has advised the government in the past, said Britain needed a “batery czar” to make sure the industry pulled together — a role played in the EU by European Commission Vice-president Maros Sefcovic since 2017.

Winter said failure to provide enough support, whether in Britain or the EU, would hand the race to China, which makes about three quarters of the world’s EV bateries.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligen­ce (BMI) forecasts Britain needs at least 175 GWH of batery cell capacity by 2035 to supply around 3 million fully-electric vehicles. For now, it estimates Britain is way off the pace, with only 56.9 GWH by 2030.

To avoid EU tariffs, British-built cars must meet a range of rules on origin that from 2027 will include a stipulatio­n that 70% of the batery pack comes from the EU or Britain.

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