The Japanese car giant Nissan has announced plans for the UK’s first “gigafactory” producing batteries for electric vehicles, in a £1bn investment plan that secures the future of its Sunderland car plant.
The move is a boost for the north-east and the UK’s car industry as it tries to move from internal combustion engine to electric vehicles in the push towards net zero.
Nissan has announced that it will invest £423m in the Sunderland plant, to produce a new-generation all-electric crossover vehicle, creating 750 new jobs.
And its Chinese partner, the battery producer Envision-AESC, is spending £450m building a battery factory next door, which will make electric power for the vehicles, creating another 900 roles.
Sunderland council is also onboard – leading an £80m plan to create a “microgrid” of solar farms and windfarms to power the energy-intensive factories, including a dedicated energy storage facility made from secondhand electric car batteries.
The plan is expected to create about 6,000 direct and indirect jobs in the supply chain.
Gigafactories are vital to the move towards electric cars, and earlier this week the UK’s car industry warned that Britain risks being "stranded" unless the government helped boost capacity.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders called for a “binding target” of 60GWh of battery capacity by 2030, to protect the industry’s future.
Meaanwhile, theOpec group of oil producers, and allies including Russia, are holding their monthly meeting, where they will decide whether to keep relaxing their production curbs by raising oil output in August.
The agenda
• 9am BST: Andrew Bailey: speech at Mansion House
• 9.30am BST: UK manufacturing PMI for June
• 10am BST: eurozone unemployment stats for June
• Noon: Opec conference begins
• 1.30pm BST: US weekly jobless report
We’ll be tracking all the main events throughout the day ... |
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