Nissan is in advanced talks with the UK government to build a large battery factory for electric cars in the UK. That giant factory would, according to business newspaper Financial Times at the Nissan plant in Sunderland.
According to insiders, the talks would have accelerated after the Brexit deal between the United Kingdom and the European Union. At the beginning of this year, Nissan already indicated that it had plans to produce batteries in the UK. Nissan would like to receive tens of millions of pounds in subsidy from the British government for the project and also receive a discount on energy costs.
The Sunderland plant is expected to make 200,000 electric cars annually, which will also create additional jobs for thousands of employees. This would make the UK the main production site for Nissan’s electric cars outside Japan. A formal announcement from Nissan about the battery factory may be released this summer.
Currently, the company in Sunderland is already making batteries on a smaller scale for the electric Nissan Leaf. Nissan may also move European production of the all-new Ariya all-electric to Sunderland when the British battery factory becomes a reality. For the time being, the factory in Tochigi, Japan, is the only production location for that model.
Plans were also announced earlier for a ‘giga factory’ for battery production near Coventry, UK. This is an initiative from the Municipality of Coventry and Coventry Airport. When it comes, that factory will mainly produce batteries for Jaguar Land Rover, which has factories nearby.