On a visit last week to the windswept site of Britishvolt’s future “gigafactory” in Northumberland, executive chairman Peter Rolton was defiant: “I don’t want to sell this site and I don’t want to give [it] away.” The £3.8 billion project to make batteries for electric cars was running into trouble, and he said “rampant inflation and rising interest rates” were to blame.
It was just a bad idea that survived so far on politics, not business nor economics. And politics is a flimsy base for a business…..
And politics is a flimsy base for a business…..
Tim, [sigh], not in the real world it isn’t: it’s the goose that lays the never-ending stream of golden eggs. Is it possible to get subsidies for windfarms and payments for “rewilding” on the same bit of land? I don’t know but what a great business.
Germany struggling to entice battery production
And enticing Intel to Magdeburg and Kildare looks likely to break the EU spunking
record if they get the subsidies they want.
I don’t understand why having local wafer production of thicknesses under 20nm is such a big deal it needs support, but that’s what the bureaucracy wants it seems.
Batteries baksheesh.
“And politics is a flimsy base for a business…..”
On the contrary, bribing politicians to let you feed at their trough is much easier than satisfying customers with good service and products.
There just aren’t enough lions to go round.
How the FUCK are they expecting to set up massively energy intensive manufacturing industries in the most eye-wateringly expensive energy market on planet Earth, and still turn a profit in the face of much cheaper American and Chinese competition?
Answers on the back of a stamped, self-addressed HS2 train full of lions, please.
“politics is a flimsy base for a business…..”: it’s done Tesla proud. The secret is timing.
I think a better point to be made is that while it is possible to suck a lot of cash out of the government (and ultimately the general taxpayer), you are always at risk of that government changing and losing interest in or even becoming hostile to your business.
Into which imaginary electric cars will the batteries go and with what imaginary electricity will they be charged and via what imaginary grid system?
Anyone remember the Sinclair C5 electric ‘vehicle’?
Everyone laughed at the C5 but it’s looking ever more likely he was just massively ahead of the times
And the technology.
The C5… The Home Computer Museum in Eindhoven has one. It’s….. a fun little toy… outstripped by the modern electrical pedal-assisted bikes.
Besides battery life/effective radius, I think its biggest problem was the complete lack of infrastructure that would have supported it. Especially in the UK, which is… not particularly Pleasant… to cyclists. Even the non-spandex-retard variety.
Which reminds me… new brake pads.. Winter Is Coming…