Car industry under threat over battery blunders

THE long-term future of British car making is under threat because of the failure to develop an electric battery industry, MPs were told yesterday.

More than 800,000 people are employed in the sector which faces a transformation over the next few years as petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles are phased out.

Key to the switch to electric will be the development of so-called ‘gigafactories’ producing batteries for plug-in electric cars. Yet Britain is falling behind in the race to make the change amid a global scramble for raw materials such as lithium that are needed for the process, the business select committee was told.

Meanwhile, Make UK, the manufacturing body, claimed that Britain was being let down by the lack of a broader industrial strategy.

Darren Jones, chairman of the business select committee, suggested that if the battery industry fails to catch up, car companies will over time ‘make decisions to relocate new production lines in other countries where these supply chains exist’ triggering a decline for the industry.

‘I sadly think that’s true – and that’s 800,000 people’s jobs on the line and we just can’t accept that,’ said Jeff Townsend, founder of the Critical Minerals Association, an industry body.

Simon Moores, chief executive of the Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a consultancy, warned of the scramble for materials such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite. He said: ‘We can catch up, most definitely. We are very far behind.

‘The UK at the moment doesn’t have a strategy, doesn’t have a runner in this race,’ he said.

Even if it comes up with a strategy to help attract the industry it will take until 2030 to build a battery supply chain, Moores warned.

Paul Lusty, director of the UK Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre, told MPs: ‘I don’t think we can currently be confident that we are going to be able to fulfil the raw material demands of the UK for building out gigafactories.’

Jeremy Wrathall, founder of Cornish Lithium – which is exploring the region for the potential to extract the metal – pointed to the difficulty of competing for funds at a time when the US as well as Europe are offering huge incentives.

Liam Condon, the boss of UK chemicals giant Johnson Matthey, went further, claiming on Sky News that the race for the battery industry was ‘over’. But he said Britain could still become a ‘global champion’ in green hydrogen, another net zero technology, but must ‘move with a sense of urgency’ to avoid squandering its lead.

A report from Make UK yesterday called for a new plan for the UK to create high-skilled manufacturing jobs.

Chief executive Stephen Phipson said: ‘A lack of a proper, planned, industrial strategy is the UK’s Achilles heel.

‘Every other major economy, from Germany, to China, to the US, has a long-term national manufacturing plan.’