19 January 2023 - Two firms bid for battery factory

The Opposition Labour Party has labelled the collapse of the UK’s only domestically owned manufacturer of batteries to power electric cars as a disaster for the UK automotive sector. They believe that the collapse of Britishvolt could potentially see the demise of car manufacture in the UK. The sector currently employs in excess of 750k people. Petrol and diesel vans will no longer be manufactured after 2030, so a reliable and efficient source of power is essential to the future production of electric cars. With the lead in time to going from concept to production of batteries around five years, the clock is now genuinely ticking. Since the announcement earlier in the week that Britishvolt had run out of money, there have been two expressions of interest from firms interested in taking on the building of the plant on the site that has already been allocated for production. The most prominent of these is Tata Motors which already owns the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, The other is from the venture capital company which was an investor in the original undertaking. Beyond Currency Market Commentary: Aims to provide deep insights into the political and economic events worldwide that can cause currencies to change and how this can affect your FX Exposure.