According to foreign media reports, a person familiar with the matter said that Lutes Motor and the British battery company Britishvolt have signed a preliminary agreement to explore cooperation in battery manufacturing and research and development.
The two companies plan to release details of the memorandum of understanding next week, according to the person familiar with the matter. Representatives of both companies declined to comment as of press time.
For Britishvolt, it is its first formal partnership with a carmaker and an important step in seeking to consolidate its credibility with potential investors. So far, the company has conducted two rounds of financing and said last year that it was considering listing on the London Stock Exchange.
Britishvolt has begun investing 2.6 billion pounds ($3.5 billion) in a battery factory in Blyth, England, and says it will eventually create about 3000 jobs. Britishvolt said its plant would be operational by the end of 2023 and would eventually have an annual battery capacity of more than 300,000 electric vehicles.
The British government also said it would provide a sum of money from its car conversion fund (Automotive Transformation Fund) to support the project, but did not specify the amount. The fund, totaling 1 billion pounds, aims to help build factories that can produce batteries on a large scale.
With Britain planning to ban the sale of fuel-fueled cars by 2030, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Boris Johnson) is eager to build a local battery manufacturing industry.
In July last year, Nissan said it would invest 1 billion pounds ($1.33 billion) in a battery plant with Chinese partner Vision Power to power 100000 electric vehicles a year, including a crossover model that Nissan is about to launch. It is reported that the new plant will be put into operation as early as 2024.
