Tata Group aims to accelerate Jaguar Land Rover’s shift to electric cars by setting up battery cell manufacturing operations in Europe.
JLR and Tata Motors will be the anchor customers for the facility, which will also sell battery cells to the wider market, said Tata Motors Chief Financial Officer, P.B. Balaji.
тАЬWe are well covered on the production plans for batteries, but we will require some cell capacity coming into Europe,тАЭ Balaji said at the India Auto Expo taking place this week on the outskirts of New Delhi.
Tata is finalizing plans and will announce details soon, he said, declining to disclose the location of the facility and a time frame. There will be a тАЬlot of investments,тАЭ Balaji said, without elaborating.
The тАЬintellectual property-heavyтАЭ facility will produce two cell chemistries тАФ lithium iron phosphate for Tata MotorsтАЩ EVs and nickel manganese cobalt for the Indian automaker as well as JLR, Balaji said.
The plan should help the company better control critical parts of the supply chain, which has faced disruptions globally during the COVID pandemic.
Tata and Jaguar Land Rover benefit from being a part of larger ecosystem, Balaji said.
JLR has previously said that Jaguar, the smaller of its two brands, will be entirely electric by 2025, while Land Rover will get its first full-electric model in 2024.
The UKтАЩs car industry has struggled in the aftermath of Brexit and in making the switch to EVs. The country has failed to attract much investment in large-scale cell facilities, beyond one owned by ChinaтАЩs Envision Group.
UK battery startup Britishvolt has said it is in talks with a consortium of investors about selling a majority stake in the company.
