According to Bloomberg, India’s Tata is expected to announce its decision to build a factory in the UK on Wednesday. A government spokesman declined to comment on ongoing business talks, while Tata declined to comment on the report.
Tata is said to have been scouting sites between south-west England and Spain for a factory to supply batteries for electric Jaguar and Land Rover models.
According to the BBC, the government will provide Tata with subsidies worth hundreds of millions of pounds. “JLR’s decision to invest in UK battery production is very welcome. However, we will be thinking about the subsidy package needed to secure this decision,” said Darren Jones, chairman of the parliamentary business committee.
For months, industry speculation has swirled around where Tata, the conglomerate with interests in software, steel, cars and airlines, would build the plant.
The factory will be a milestone for the UK as it tries to catch up with the rest of the world in electric vehicles, and the battery factory is crucial for carmakers that rely on heavy-duty batteries.
However, the UK does not have that much money to spend. Regarding the promise of hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to green industries under the US “Inflation Cutting Act”, British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said that the government does not have a lot of money for similar measures.
Homegrown batteries will also help British carmakers comply with post-Brexit trade rules, it is said. The rules require them to source more electric car components locally from 2024 to avoid tariffs on trade between the UK and the EU.
The government has previously said it was in talks with the EU to relax those rules after auto giant Stellantis warned it would be forced to close factories and lose thousands of jobs if it faced tariffs.
The UK government has proposed a series of net-zero targets to boost economic growth, including banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
Note: Tata Group is currently the largest group company in India, including 96 companies in 7 departments, operating in more than 40 countries on six continents, and its products are exported to 140 countries, involving aviation, automobiles, FMCG products, chemical substances, national defence and aerospace, power distribution systems, engineering, finance, medical care, information, railway locomotives, real estate, steel, communications and other fields.
According to public information, Tata Group got its name from its founder, Jamshidji Tata, whose family members have almost always served as chairman of the group. The chairman of the group during the transition period is Ratan Tata.
