LONDON -- Electric-vehicle battery startup Britishvolt said it had selected a site in northeast England to build a 2.6 billion-pound ($3.5 billion) factory that is scheduled to start production in 2023.
The plant will be built in three stages in the port of Blyth, Britishvolt said in a statement on Friday. It will produce at least 300,000 lithium ion batteries a year for the UK automotive industry by 2027.
Chief Strategy Officer Isobel Sheldon said Britishvolt's batteries would perform 20 percent to 25 percent better than Tesla's, the company that dominates global EV sales.
The plant will be designed by Italian automotive design house Pininfarina. It will be built on the former the site of the Blyth Power Station.
The plant will use renewable energy, including the potential to use hydro-electric power generated in Norway and transmitted 447 miles (720 km) under the North Sea via the world’s longest inter-connector.
Britishvolt said the Blyth site was chosen for its excellent transport links and access to clean, renewable energy.
The company had said in July that it would open the plant in St Athan, Wales, close to Aston Martin's DBX factory. Britishvolt has now picked Blyth because the Welsh site would not be ready to start construction in the summer of 2021, the Guardian newspaper reported.
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Britishvolt has applied for backing from a 1 billion pound British government fund set up to support the mass production of batteries and help the auto industry shift toward making EVs.
The fund was announced by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last month as part of plans to ban the sale of new cars and vans that run solely on gasoline and diesel cars from 2030. Hybrid vehicles can still be sold until 2035.
Sheldon said the company was raising more money and considering a stock market listing. The company has said it has raised about 10 million pounds so far.
Britishvolt is the only company so far to announce plans to build new battery production in Britain.
A wave of EV-related startups have gone public around the world this year, typically involving a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The top performer among them is battery startup QuantumScape, which has Volkswagen Group as its largest shareholder.
China now hosts roughly 80 percent of the world's lithium ion cell production, but the European Union plans to boost local output and could be self-sufficient by 2025.
Europe has 15 large-scale battery cell factories under construction, including Northvolt's plants in Sweden and Germany, Chinese battery maker CATL's German facility, and South Korean firm SK Innovation's second plant in Hungary.
Tesla is also building a car and battery factory near Berlin in Germany.
