Report: Jaguar Land Rover linked with UK battery factory plans

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has reportedly earmarked two UK sites for a new EV battery factory, one of them a location previously linked with Tesla.

However, a decision has yet to be made as the British firm’s parent company, Tata Motors, is currently pushing the UK government to provide financial incentives, The Telegraph reports.

If no agreement is reached, Tata has threatened to shift EV battery production to Slovakia, the report adds. But this threat has been downplayed by ministers, who have called it a “negotiating tactic”. JLR has also told Autocar this reported threat is "totally inaccurate".

The two sites on Tata’s shortlist are the Teesworks site in Redcar, Yorkshire, and the soon-to-be-built Gravity Business Park in Bridgwater, Somerset - which in 2020 was tipped as a potential location for Tesla to build a European battery production facility. 

Rivian, the Amazon-backed electric truck maker, was also previously being wooed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to build a gigafactory at the Gravity site, the report added.

A spokesman for JLR told Autocar: “With our strategy for every single Jaguar Land Rover model available as a full BEV by the end of the decade, we will retain our plant and assembly facilities in the home UK market and around the world, as cited in the Reimagine strategy.

"We continue to explore all options around the supply of batteries. No decisions have been made yet."

A final decision from JLR is expected at the end of June, as the firm progresses with plans to launch electric versions of the new Range Rover and Range Rover Sport in 2024 and reinvent Jaguar as an all-electric luxury brand the following year. 

In March, the car maker had started talks with battery supplier Envision AESC about producing power sources for its Land Rover and Range Rover models, which sparked rumours of a UK site.

At the time, it remained tight-lipped over any potential agreement.

Envision, which supplies batteries to Nissan, is already planning a new £450 million battery plant for the Japanese car maker in Sunderland.