LONDON -- Electric-vehicle battery startup Britishvolt said in a statement on Friday it had selected a site in northern England to build a 2.6 billion-pound ($3.5 billion) factory that is slated to start production in 2023.
The company, which so far has said it has raised about 10 million pounds, said the plant in the port of Blyth would be built in three stages, employing up to 3,000 people and producing at least 300,000 lithium ion batteries a year by 2027.
The plant will be designed by Italian automotive design house Pininfarina.
Britishvolt had said in it would open the plant at a site on the Bro Tathan business park in St Athan in South Wales, close to a new factory where Aston Martin is building its DBX SUV.
Britishvolt said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Welsh government in July.
Britishvolt has applied for backing from a 1 billion pound British government fund set up to support the mass production of batteries and help the auto industry shift toward making EVs.
The fund was announced by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last month as part of plans to ban the sale of new cars and vans that run solely on gasoline and diesel cars from 2030. Hybrid vehicles can still be sold until 2035.
Britishvolt is the only company so far to announce plans to build new battery production in Britain.
Chief strategy officer Isobel Sheldon said Britishvolt's batteries would perform 20 percent to 25 percent better than Tesla's, the company that dominates global EV sales.
She said the company was raising more money and considering a stock market listing.
A wave of EV-related startups have gone public around the world this year, typically involving a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The top performer among them is battery startup QuantumScape, which has Volkswagen Group as its largest shareholder.
China now hosts roughly 80 percent of the world's lithium ion cell production, but the European Union plans to boost local output and could be self-sufficient by 2025.
Europe has 15 large-scale battery cell factories under construction, including Northvolt's plants in Sweden and Germany, Chinese battery maker CATL's German facility, and South Korean firm SK Innovation's second plant in Hungary.
Tesla is also building a car and battery factory in Germany.
