9:38 am, January 19, 2023
An advanced battery plant is to open in Kidlington in April, bringing with it ‘hundreds and hundreds’ of jobs.
WAE Technologies confirmed the news after owner and mining tycoon Andrew Forrest spoke about the Oxfordshire factory while at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The boost to the UK’s electric battery industry follows the collapse of Britishvolt, which went into administration earlier this week and made the majority of the circa 300 jobs redundant.
Britishvolt had planned to build a gigafactory in Cambois near Blyth in Northumberland, pictured above, but it appointed administrators from EY after it was unable to raise enough money for research and development of the site.
Forrest, who owns Australian iron ore giant Fortescue and bought WAE – the technical offshoot of Formula 1 team Williams – last year, told Sky News yesterday that the Kidlington plant would make batteries and fuel cells for HGVs.
The entrepreneur said: ‘We invested heavily in British technology, British knowhow and British work ethic last year.
‘But then we’ve said: “Listen, it’s great you’ve got the most advanced, innovative prototype batteries in the world… but we’ve got to get into manufacturing.”
‘So last year, we started building a large factory in Kidlington. We’ll open it in April.
‘It will [create] hundreds and hundreds of new British jobs.’
The Kidlington site is much smaller than the one planned by Britishvolt.
After the collapse of Britishvolt, Parliament’s business committee launched an inquiry into UK electric vehicle battery production.
It’ll probe the supply of batteries for electric vehicle manufacturing in the UK and the viability of production here.
BMW said in October that it would be moving production of the electric Mini from its Oxford site to China.
On January 12, Fortescue announced that WAE Technologies had completed and delivered to Australia the largest battery of its kind, ready to be installed in a prototype zero-emission battery-electric mining haul truck that it was developing with Liebherr.
The 1.4MWh prototype power system weighs 15 tonnes, measures 3.6m long, 1.6m wide and 2.4m high, and comprises eight sub-packs, each with 36 modules.
WAE Technologies CEO Craig Wilson said: ‘This high-performance power system not only boasts the highest energy storage of its kind, but will also be the first to offer 30-minute fast charging.’
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