Blyth Gigaplant



duff_man said:
Is this because of brexit or despite brexit?
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It will be interesting to see whether this is a strategic a PR piece or whether BV already have orders. I do hope they do and it is a viable business but you do have to think that the announcement is slightly coincidental what with the brexit deadline being upon us and this being a start up business. For instance is or has Nissan placed orders with them? If not Nissan who are the other companies placing orders for these batteries?
 
zinedine said:
Looks like we need to vote for a Tory MP. :lol:
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Brexit first,then the Tories to make sure. 🤪
Slim999 said:
Could be to do with Brexit in a way

This plant was to be built in Wales where Jim Ratliffe was planning to.build electric range rovers
He's now building them in France

Possibly why BV have moved north
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So you are suggesting it moved purely because the great brexiteer JR decided France was a much better place to build cars than the UK,Nissan/Renault seem to think similar.
 
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Slim999 said:
Could be to do with Brexit in a way

This plant was to be built in Wales where Jim Ratliffe was planning to.build electric range rovers
He's now building them in France

Possibly why BV have moved north
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The stated reasons for building in Blyth were that the site was vast and already levelled , easy access to the port and an easily reinstated rail link plus the site was able to be built on immediately. How does this relate to Ratliffes decision to build his cars elsewhere ?
 
Osklen said:
It will be interesting to see whether this is a strategic a PR piece or whether BV already have orders. I do hope they do and it is a viable business but you do have to think that the announcement is slightly coincidental what with the brexit deadline being upon us and this being a start up business. For instance is or has Nissan placed orders with them? If not Nissan who are the other companies placing orders for these batteries?
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Do you think they can just knock this sort of deal up in a few weeks for pr? There has been a hell of a lot of work put into getting this deal across the line for the North East.
Its not dependant on Nissan.
 
legend7 said:
Do you think they can just knock this sort of deal up in a few weeks for pr? There has been a hell of a lot of work put into getting this deal across the line for the North East.
Its not dependant on Nissan.
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No not at all and been involved in these things in the past where by you are bidding against numerous other sites for business it can take 6-12 months as they go into a great deal of detail particularly around site abnormals, planning, acoustics, transport routes etc, . It’s not so much the choice of site but the choice of company.

My query is more why is the BV scheme given the go ahead, especially as it appears to be a new start up, against sat the proposed Envision development (already an establish business with an established site operating at nissan) at IAMP in Sunderland or the AMTE Power (another start up) development in Teeside if none of the sites have planning consent, a contractor in place or more importantly if orders have not yet been placed for the batteries. I could be wrong and BV may have a number of orders in place which means the scheme is a goer, however I am aware that A number of car manufacturers have not placed orders as they are awaiting the outcome of brexit. The BV scheme maybe be preferred as they produce different types of batteries compared to the others I genuinely don’t know. It just seems coincidental to announce it at this time.

It may well be because it’s a British start up that it’s been given preference.
 
Sandboy said:
And not knowing what terms they'll be trading with the biggest market on.... On the face of it the whole thing makes zero sense, hop to hell I'm wrong
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Cannot see it exporting anything once tariffs are added,also seems to me to be a bit of a Tory thank you to the locals for voting for for them.Hope iam wrong though.
 
bomber said:
Cannot see it exporting anything once tariffs are added,also seems to me to be a bit of a Tory thank you to the locals for voting for for them.Hope iam wrong though.
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It would be a pretty big thank you ha ha, I think you're wrong but we are all entitled to our opinions.
I'm seeing it as a positive for the region but if others want to see different then that's their perogative.
 
legend7 said:
It would be a pretty big thank you ha ha, I think you're wrong but we are all entitled to our opinions.
I'm seeing it as a positive for the region but if others want to see different then that's their perogative.
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it is a positive,and lots of jobs will be created,but i doubt it be anywhere near 8000 though.5000 jobs in the supply chain for a battery plant seems a lot for a battery plant imo.
 
PinzaC55 said:
The stated reasons for building in Blyth were that the site was vast and already levelled , easy access to the port and an easily reinstated rail link plus the site was able to be built on immediately. How does this relate to Ratliffes decision to build his cars elsewhere ?
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Automotive plants and suppliers tend to cluster around certain zones - the decision by BV to choose Wales over Blyth was made some time ago ...

If that was a marginal decision, the Grenadier move might have swung the decision .
Perhaps BV are now not convinced that S Wales will be an automotive hotbed. ..
... Especially with the uncertainty of Brexit hovering.

NE at least has Nissan - which could be impacted severely by a No Deal Brexit- but which will undoubtedly stick around to supply UK market
 
Slim999 said:
Automotive plants and suppliers tend to cluster around certain zones - the decision by BV to choose Wales over Blyth was made some time ago ...

If that was a marginal decision, the Grenadier move might have swung the decision .
Perhaps BV are now not convinced that S Wales will be an automotive hotbed. ..
... Especially with the uncertainty of Brexit hovering.

NE at least has Nissan - which could be impacted severely by a No Deal Brexit- but which will undoubtedly stick around to supply UK market
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It wasn't a marginal decision to choose Blyth over Wales according to this article UK's first gigaplant in Blyth will bring 3k new jobs to the North East

The Britishvolt spokeswoman said

'Although we’ve decided not to go to Bro Tathan, that was primarily due to timescales. It would have taken around two years before we could have started to look at building the plant, and that would have put us two years behind schedule.

'That’s why we investigated the Northumberland site, which has turned out to be much better.

'There is a lot of renewable energy close at hand and there is access to deep-water ports without having to trundle across the country.

'Any location that's in-land isn’t going to have the renewables, electrical infrastructure or the accessibility to ports that we needed, so it had to be around the coastal districts.

'In Wales, there just wasn’t enough space. There were nearby locations but they were unable to co-locate on the same piece of land.'

TiM: Does the confirmation of Blyth mean the prospect of a plant in Bro Tathan is completely dead?

IS: 'We'll keep our interest high in the Bro Tathan site. We know it’s a suitable location but we also know it's going to take at least two years before we could even consider building there"

You need to put any anti Brexit sentiments you have to one side and remember that Project Fear told us this kind of foreign investment in the UK wasn't going to happen.

From the same article

" 'In fact, a hard Brexit would reinforce our domestic business case here in the UK. We need to be the backstop for the automotive industry. If you can’t build batteries close to where you build vehicles, the industry is going to leach away to other countries.'
 

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