Tata Motors is believed to have selected Somerset in the UK as the location for a large electric vehicle battery plant and a deal could be reached as early as next week.
The Indian car manufacturer that owns Jaguar Land Rover was tossing up between establishing a large battery factory in either the UK or Spain. The BBC reports that the owner of Tata will fly to the UK next week to meet with the prime minister and to finalize the deal.
While many details about the factory remain under wraps, it could create as many as 9,000 jobs and would be a big win for the UK government that has failed to attract significant automotive investments in recent years. A possible deal with Tata would also come just a few months after local battery startup Britishvolt fell into administration having previously committed to spending $5.1 billion on an EV battery gigafactory in Northumberland that would have been able to produce 30 gigawatt-hours of batteries annually.
Read: Tata Wants British Government To Pay $600M For Jaguar Land Rover Battery Plant
The BBC reports that the British government offered an incentive package worth hundreds of millions of dollars to attract Tata. The government has previously committed £300 million ($370 million) to subsidize, upgrade, and decarbonize Tata’s steel interests in the UK and its facility in Port Talbot, South Wales. It is also reported that Tata was convinced to establish the factory in the UK because of its skilled automotive workforce and the heritage of Jaguar Land Rover.
Reports of this deal come less than two weeks after Stellantis warned it might have to close Vauxhall’s factory in the UK if the government does not renegotiate the controversial Brexit deal. Stellantis confirmed that if the cost of EV manufacturing in the UK “becomes uncompetitive and unsustainable, operations will close.”
