Labour’s Electric Vehicle plan will power £30bn in growth, as party warns Britain ‘losing the race’ under the Conservatives

Labour plan to back electric vehicle manufacturing with 8 new battery plants will support £30bn in growth in the UK and power over 1.8m cars, the party has said.

On a visit today (Thursday 9^th March) to Warwick Manufacturing Group, which invests in skills and innovation in the EV industry, the party will call on the Conservatives to back Labour’s plan on gigafactories and charging infrastructure, as the United States and Europe surge ahead with investment to secure the jobs of the future. 

Louise Haigh, Ed Miliband and Jonathan Reynolds - Labour’s Transport, Net Zero and Business chiefs - will warn that, under the Conservatives, the UK risks “losing the race to build the electric vehicle revolution here in Britain” as leading manufacturer, JLR, reportedly warn they may locate battery production in Spain without support for capacity in the UK and the Chief Executive of Make UK warned that due to government’s lack of strategy the industry “is in the last chance saloon”.

And new research by Labour shows the UK will have one-tenth of the battery capacity of Germany by 2025, and one-thirtieth of the United States.

To support the manufacturing of electric vehicles and £30bn of growth Labour will: 

·       £2bn to part-finance the creation of eight new, additional gigafactories in the West Midlands, the North East, the North West, and the South West as part of the party’s ambitious Green Prosperity Pledge.

·       Accelerate the roll-out of public charging points to make it easier to own an electric car wherever you live, with binding targets.

·       Make the UK a clean-energy superpower by 2030 with net-zero carbon electricity, lowering UK electricity costs - a key barrier to UK car industry competitiveness.  

Shadow Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh MP commenting ahead of the visit, said:

“Our world-class car industry can lead the way, but under the Conservative’s we are losing the race to build the electric vehicle revolution here in Britain.”

“Labour will turbocharge electric vehicle manufacturing and bring good jobs back to Britain’s industrial heartlands.”

“We will invest in eight new battery plants, and lower sky-high electric costs hampering British industry with our plans for zero-carbon power. And we will accelerate the roll-out of charging points, to give motorists confidence to make the switch.”

“Labour’s vision is clear – instead of shipping jobs overseas as we have done for decades, we want to win the race for the industries of the future, and create good jobs here in Britain."

Notes:

UK falling behind on battery capacity:

• The United States is forecast to have 382 GWh of lithium-ion battery capacity by 2025 and Germany 158.5 GWh capacity. In contrast, following the collapseof the 20GWh BritishVolt project in Blyth, the UK was forecast to have only 12.9 GWh capacity by 2025. This is around 30 times less than the US and around 10 times less than Germany.

• At their annual conference on Tuesday, Chief Executive of Make UK, Stephen Phipson, said: “For many years I have been telling Government that the UK needed a strategy to enable the transition of the [automotive] sector and its supply chain from making combustion engines to electric, but those warnings have gone unheeded. It is not too late but, with the Chief Executives of some of the major OEMs issuing warnings recently about the UK's competitiveness in this area we are in the last chance saloon.”

• The UK car industry faces the highest electricity prices in Europe, 59% higher than EU average: SMMT has warned the UK’s electricity costs are “undermining investment in the UK at a pivotal moment”. https://www.smmt.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/SMMT-Full-Throttle-To-Full-Charge-report.pdf

And on the EV charging roll-out:

• At the current annual rate of fewer than 9,000 chargers per year, the UK will not hit 300,000 charging points (the figure the government say they need) until 2053, over 20 years late: Electric vehicle charging device statistics: January 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 
• Westminster now has more chargers than 11 northern cities combined.

Labour’s plan to back Britain’s electric vehicle industry:

• Part-finance the creation of eight new, additional gigafactories with £2bn of investment as part of the party’s ambitious Green Prosperity Pledge.

• Accelerate the roll-out of charging points and give confidence to motorists to make the switch with binding targets for electric vehicle charging, to address the disparity in regional and local roll-out. Central Government will be accountable for progress towards these targets and with ensuring local authorities and sub-regional authorities can access the resources and expertise that they need to deliver charge points. The targets will hold government to account and provide long-term signals and direction for public-private investment. Binding targets will give consumers certainty and confidence to switch to Electric Vehicles, and give local areas the support and investment they need to do it. 

• Make the UK a clean-energy superpower by 2030 with net-zero carbon electricity, lowering UK electricity costs - a key barrier to UK car industry competitiveness. Labour’s historic commitment to make the UK the world’s first major economy to have a zero carbon power system by 2030. This will cut £93 billion in energy bills for the British people by investing in cleaner, cheaper homegrown power for our country

Labour’s support for part-financing for up to eight Gigactories will create up to £30bn in value by 2040:

• SMMT say there were 859,575 cars produced in 2021, creating 14.1 billion of value. 

• Faraday Battery Institute estimate that with the right amount of gigafactories, the UK could support 1.8 million cars in 2040. 

• If we assume value per car stays constant, that’s £30 billion of value by 2040.