“We recently launched our first home battery, and while we’re excited about the product, we would have preferred to source the battery cells from the UK if that had been an option,” he said.
He estimates that the UK can only produce 50,000 car batteries a year, not even a tenth of what will be needed.
Hawes at the SMMT argues that Britain’s automotive industry has “fundamental strengths” but that changes are needed to make sure it doesn’t fall prey to more agile rivals.
“It can, and will, build back,” he adds. “But the UK Government – like others with whom we compete – must take action to ensure the UK remains a competitive destination for inward investment.”
Extra checks on exports to the EU – the UK car industry’s biggest market – have inevitably added time and pressure.
The UK motor industry has a 0pc tariff deal with the EU, but there is still plenty of paperwork that was not there before the UK’s exit from the union, says Ian Foley, founder of electric bus maker Equipmake. These small differences can mean foreign investors are put off from the UK.
Cracking the gigafactory conundrum
Palmer, who is known as the “godfather of electric vehicles” because of his work launching Nissan’s electric Leaf, can vividly recall being awoken at 3am by former business secretary Lord Mandelson 12 years ago when he was still an executive based in Japan.
Nissan needed to decide where to situate a battery factory for the Leaf – then seen as an ambitious gamble – and Mandelson had caught wind that Palmer was set to choose Portugal over the UK.
“I hear you’re going to make the decision to go to Portugal, I want you to change your mind,” the Labour minister told Palmer.
Palmer replied that the Portuguese had won fair and square, offering better incentives to the company, but Mandelson requested that he hold off 24 hours anyway.
“He then came back with the goods – and that is why the battery plant in Sunderland exists today,” Palmer says.
“And once you’ve got a factory, it’s easier to expand it.”
Today, ministers need to be similarly proactive to ensure that Britain gets its share of the electric car market, he says.
“You look across the channel, and the EU has made battery manufacturing a project of strategic priority,” Palmer says.
“It’s a chicken and egg situation. For example, if I wanted to build a battery factory in the UK I probably want to secure Jaguar Land Rover as a customer.
“JLR probably also wants to be close to a battery manufacturer, otherwise it’ll decide to go somewhere like Slovakia. That’s where you need intervention.”
Palmer, who is chairman of battery producer InoBat, says his own company is currently choosing between Spain and the UK as possible sites for a gigafactory – but Madrid is working harder to woo him.
“From an emotional point of view, I’d love to see the UK win, but I have to represent my shareholders,” he says.
Foley agrees. “One thing that concerns me is if you look at the level of commitment from other countries, regions, to things like battery manufacturing, it’s orders of magnitude larger than the UK,” he says.
If the Government will not shell out, some believe rules should be tweaked to allow pension funds to invest in the nascent sector. Even a tiny fraction of the £114.6bn squirrelled away by pension savers last year could make a difference, but current restrictions mean UK funds must be far more cautious than their US counterparts.
“Fundamentally, in the UK, the people who run investment funds are more conservative than in America,” Foley says.
If the UK can crack the gigafactory conundrum, it can harness the great strengths already here.
“The UK is known for having outstanding creativity and innovation,” says Hayaatun Sillemchief, chief executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Industry figures say this is borne out by the wealth of motorsport companies based here, such as McLaren, Williams, Aston Martin, as well as the racing teams for Mercedes, Alpine and Haas.
But, Sillem adds, the country must get better at taking that innovation and successfully commercialising it into businesses that generate manufacturing, jobs and wealth. She too cites the shyness of investment money and the lack of government help as problems holding back the industry.
“We do need to have that clear partnership between government and business,” she says.
Palmer says Britain still has a chance at turning things around, but adds: “If I’m being honest we’re arriving very late to the party. We’d better get a move on if we think we’re going to save the car industry.”
After his 150th phone call, Britishvolt’s Rolton managed to secure a last-minute lifeline for his company from Glencore, the mining and commodities giant.
The cash injection – which is being accompanied by cost-saving measures such as voluntary pay cuts pledged by staff – will keep the business going for now. In the end, Rolton says, either his business succeeds or another one must if the British car industry is to survive.
“Batteries come to cars or cars go to batteries,” Rolton says. “We still don’t quite seem to grasp that yet.”
For now, Britisvolt’s dream of powering the electric car revolution is operating on borrowed time. Like the UK’s car industry at large, time is running out to save it.
A government spokesman said: “The UK is one of the best locations in the world for automotive manufacturing and we remain dedicated to securing gigafactories across the country.
“Our success is evidenced by the huge recent investment by Nissan in their new Sunderland site, and we will build on this through a major investment programme to electrify our supply chain and create jobs.
“Support for Britishvolt through the Automotive Transformation Fund was always dependent on the company meeting certain pre-agreed milestones in order to protect taxpayer money.”
As for Thatcher in the 1970s, the task of balancing taxpayer exposure with protecting a vital industry is a challenging one.
But unless the country can get it right, Britain risks the sun setting on its electric car ambitions.
