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Power Businesses United Kingdom

British Battery Start-Up Files For Bankruptcy (nytimes.com) 56

Posted by BeauHD from the another-blow-for-Brexit-Britain dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Britishvolt, a prominent battery start-up that generated enthusiasm from British politicians but never commercially produced a battery, filed for insolvency on Tuesday. The collapse deals a blow to Britain's ambitions to develop low-carbon businesses to replace some of the trade lost under Brexit. It also threatens the future of Britain's auto industry, which requires domestic sources of electric batteries if it is to thrive.

Founded in 2019, Britishvolt promoted itself as a British domestic champion. It had plans to build a 3.8 billion pound (or $4.7 billion) battery factory near Blyth in northeast England, creating 3,000 jobs. Despite forming partnerships with companies like the carmaker Aston Martin and Glencore, the commodities trading house, it failed to raise enough money to either construct the factory or perfect its battery technologies. The company said Tuesday that it was forced into administration, analogous to filing for bankruptcy. On Tuesday, all but 26 of the 232 employees at Britishvolt's main unit learned that they had lost their jobs.

The insolvency raises important questions about the future of the British auto industry. The government is pushing carmakers to rapidly convert to building electric cars, with a ban on sales of new gasoline and diesel-powered cars beginning 2030. The idea is to both meet far-reaching targets on reducing emissions and to keep pace with an enormous shift to electric cars that is rippling through the global auto industry. Experts, though, say Britain does not have sufficient sources lined up to build the batteries that make up a high proportion of the contents of electric vehicles. Ideally, these devices should be made near car assembly plants in order to meet local content rules and because they are heavy and costly to ship.
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British Battery Start-Up Files For Bankruptcy More

British Battery Start-Up Files For Bankruptcy

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  • Wait, they still had one? Thought all the "British" brands were bought up by the Germans (VW-Audi) and Indians (Tata)

    • Wait, they still had one?

      Some Japanese companies like making cars here, perfectly placed to export to mainland Europe and... ...oh we did what now?

      you sure??

    • They still have Lucas Electric don't they? Which makes the existence of any kind of British battery industry entirely moot.

    • There are some British car manufacturers left, but they're small companies like McLaren, Morgan and Ariel.
      Ineos is gearing up to become the largest, if all goes well for them.

      • "There are some British car manufacturers left, but they're small companies like McLaren, Morgan and Ariel."

        Sold last year and the year before.

    • We do make a few home grown cars here still, but not many, and assemble a few from abroad ...

      And many of the F1 Teams design build and maintain cars here ... no lacking in expertise, just a small market, and a stupid government who made it smaller ..

      • I'm sorry but, "a stupid government" -> " more than 50% stupid population". IMHO, you can't blame the government when you have at least two national elections and a referendum to influence the outcome.

      • "We do make a few home grown cars here still, but not many, "

        None, they small ones were sold in 2020 and 2021"

        "and assemble a few from abroad ..."

        At the end of the year, that will stop too, when the rules of origin grace-period for cars runs out and tariffs will be applied.

    • "Wait, they still had one? Thought all the "British" brands were bought up by the Germans (VW-Audi) and Indians (Tata)"

      No, there is no British car manufacturer left, they were ALL sold, even McLaren and Morgan.

    • Ownership and industry are two different things. The question isn't who owns a company, the question is the existance of the manufacturing industry. Bentley may be owned by VW but they are built and assembled in Cheshire, and there's a significant wider parts industry in the area to support that manufacturing. Nissan may always have been Japanese but they are manufactured and assembled in Sunderland, and that area of the UK also has secondary industry supporting the auto industry.

      Australia never had a wholl

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • "British Battery Startup Couldn't Get Their Batteries To Start Up"

  • Battery tech gold rush (Score:4, Insightful)

    by linuxguy ( 98493 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2023 @09:24PM (#63218372) Homepage
    There is a bit of a gold rush in the battery tech world. This has brought in many con artists that specialize in fooling the investors. Certain type of investors are very susceptible to snake oil. But even they will ask to see some real results eventually.

    Cyrpto market is the only market immune to this rule. In the crypto world producing nothing of value is a feature and not a bug.

  • So much wrong here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Tuesday January 17, 2023 @09:35PM (#63218396)
    First: A 230-person company that hasn't even optimized its tech? The Brits took this seriously and considered it a shining beacon for their future? In the US, a company like that wouldn't even be considered beyond the diaper-stage.

    Second: A company with unfinished tech is talking about a 4 gigadollar production facility? Really?

    Third: No, the Brits do NOT need a local battery manufacturer to be competitive in the automotive industry. It's a small country, they could focus their resources on the design of a few classic british cars, updated for EV, and capture a lucrative niche market. Hell, buy the batteries AND the drive train from Tesla, Nissan, Toyota, or Ford. At this point, the idea of the UK competing in the trillion-dollar Li-battery market..... really? I mean, really?
    • Watch any Youtube video showing how to unscrew/unbolt a battery pack, remove the dud cell, and put it back together again. It is labor intensive, The good news is even Tesla does not want to do it, even next door to the factory. There are a few start ups in USA doing this. Buying the right quality proven batteries from China is the hardest thing, (Lots of fakes and substitutions). UK should make the battery pack repair factories a priority. Like Chips and foundries, USA and China are blatantly subsidiz

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Third: No, the Brits do NOT need a local battery manufacturer to be competitive in the automotive industry. It's a small country, they could focus their resources on the design of a few classic british cars, updated for EV, and capture a lucrative niche market. Hell, buy the batteries AND the drive train from Tesla, Nissan, Toyota, or Ford.

      Of course, that would have been much easier were it not for the ill-conceived economic suicide attempt known as "Brexit". Now, it is possible, but considerably harder.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by UpnAtom ( 551727 )

        The whole enterprise was remarkably Brexity.

        Exceptionalism that a plucky upstart with no expertise can survive in the global market.
        No vertical integration/guaranteed demand and an inability to produce at the scale required were just swept under... the Irish border.

        BoZo and the rest of the Vote Leave Govt loved it.

        And completing the comparison, it was a total disaster that failed for the reasons everyone said it would.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mccalli ( 323026 )
      'The Brits' didn't, no. In fact I'd be amazed more than 1% of us had ever heard of it. I had, but only because I follow this kind of thing very closely.

      Also, despite the headlines, the UK car industry produces more cars now than it has done for a while [tradingeconomics.com] and is quite successful. The issue is they're not UK-owned, they're places like Nissan, BMW, Tata (Jaguar/Land Rover) etc..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Back in 2019, prime minister Boris Johnson lied to the electorate about two things.

      1. Brexit would be wonderful.
      2. He would "level up" deprived areas that usually vote for the other party.

      After winning on the back of those lies, he needed to at least pretend to deliver. The EU has 35 battery factories under construction, seems like a good thing to build, right? So he found some chancer who had already been declared bankrupt, promising to build a huge battery factory in the UK. Didn't bother to check if it w

    • "First: A 230-person company that hasn't even optimized its tech? The Brits took this seriously and considered it a shining beacon for their future?"

      Brexiteers are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

      • "Brexiteers are not the sharpest knives in the drawer."

        And that is a fact:

        "around 70% of Britons without any qualifications voted Leave, while only 25% of voters with a university degree did."

        https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/11/04/would-a-more-educated-population-have-rejected-brexit/

    • "No, the Brits do NOT need a local battery manufacturer to be competitive in the automotive industry. "

      Yes they do. After Brexit, they will be tariffed to death by the EU next Jan 1st, if the batteries aren't manufactured in the UK.

      "It's a small country, they could focus their resources on the design of a few classic british cars"

      You're way behind they, were all sold to foreigners as well, because they never made any profit.

    • In the US, a company like that wouldn't even be considered beyond the diaper-stage.

      Really? I thought in the US they would be showed in VC funding and called a "unicorn". Or is 230 people too many?

    • The problem is that a certain percentage of components have to be made in Britain for it to be classified as a British Car. If it isn't classified as British, then when you export it, the customer has to pay higher import taxes - they don't get any discounts from the trade deal with their country and the UK, they have to pay full WTO rates.

      For an electric car, it isn't viable to make it "British" without British batteries.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • First: A 230-person company that hasn't even optimized its tech?

      In the US, a company like that wouldn't even be considered beyond the diaper-stage

      Let me introduce you to Theranos :-)

  • The past as prologue (Score:3)

    by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @02:06AM (#63218816)

    "The insolvency raises important questions about the future of the British auto industry"

    I feel as though this has been a recurring headline since 1975. See British Leyland.

  • Duh (Score:5, Funny)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @06:02AM (#63219080)

    It's the same reason Land Rover gave up on electric vehicles: they couldn't find a way to make them leak oil.

  • Fantastic! (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @06:51AM (#63219152)

    So, when at the end of the year, the Brexit grace-period runs out, there will be tariffs on every car exported to the EU, as predicted.

    Stellantis will move Vauxhall production to France, while Germany will move Mini, Rolls Royce, Bentley to Germany, while the Japanese, Indian and Chinese owners can choose where to go with the rest of the car factories.

    There's no British car company left, they were all sold to foreign owners.

    • But think of all the freedoms you will have free from the tyranny of 4000 laws. No longer will you be forced to abide by European standards, and you can go back to screwing the British working class the way god intended. You see the problem of sewage leaking onto beaches is just a head of its time. They should have waited another year and declared it a national "best practice" meeting all current regulations.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The UK rolled over the EU trade deal with Japan. It's a great deal for Japan - they can export their cars here very easily, but the UK can only export to Japan if there is any EU quota left over after the EU is done with it.

  • Is this one of the incessant "new battery firm technology promises super batteries" companies that shows up on Slashdot roughly quarterly for the last 15 years?

  • Roads paved with gold, less red tape to treat poor immigrants like animals, and making the rich richer.
    The ruling party that is at fault for everything has been huffing it's own farts so long that they literally think that they can say something and it makes it the truth, or makes it happen - which is aided by the BBC and all but 2 newspapers.

    The current real state of the country is:
    Nearly all public sectors are on strike as they've had pay freezes and personnel cuts for 12 years
    Ironically, the governm
  • Brought to you by the makers of the Lucas Three-Position Switch [bccwnc.org] comes the Lucas Battery, with three modes: Leaking, weak, and flat.
  • ... erm ... trade deal with New Zealand and ... erm ... Blue Passports.

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