Tata Motors Demand 500-Million Pounds for Battery Factory from UK Government

According to sources, Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors has insisted that it will not commit to building a battery factory in the UK to support the production of electric cars until it receives additional taxpayer support for its steel operations in the country. To assist in converting its Port Talbot, Wales steelworks to produce carbon-neutral steel, the Indian company has applied for hundreds of millions of pounds in taxpayer funding.

Tata has been requesting a significantly larger sum, despite the government’s offer of 300 million pounds. According to reports, Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran demanded up to 1.5 billion pounds, or roughly half the cost of converting to green steel production.

Tata’s total requests for taxpayer support is around 2 billion pounds, which includes its demand for 500 million pounds to support the planned battery factory.

Five weeks ago, it was said that the government was close to agreeing on a 300 million pounds funding package for British Steel. However, no agreement has been reached. Jingye is likely to return to the table for additional cash negotiations in any expanded Tata deal.

In order to construct a gigafactory to supply its Sunderland plant, Nissan paid the majority of the £1 billion project’s cost itself, despite receiving about 100 million pounds in taxpayer support. Meanwhile, electric arc furnaces have been used by Cardiff-based Celsa, a smaller steelmaker, since the 1970s, largely decarbonizing its own processes.

A 1 billion euros renovation of a Gijon steel plant received 460 million euros in funding from the Spanish government last month from the European Commission. In 2022, ArcelorMittal broke ground on a new green steelmaking project in Canada that cost 1.8 billion Canadian dollars, with half of the cost covered by the local and national governments.