TOKYO: Nissan announces plans to build EV battery ‘gigafactory’ in UK

TOKYO: Nissan on Thursday announced
plans to build a £1 billion ($1.38 billion) gigafactory in Sunderland, U.K.

The move
is a major boost to the country’s electric vehicle plans. The project is being
dubbed Nissan EV36Zero.

Nissan recently announced plans to
build a £1 billion ($1.38 billion) “gigafactory” in Sunderland, U.K, in a major
boost to the country’s electric vehicle plans.

The
Japanese automaker said it was launching the project — dubbed Nissan EV36Zero —
along with Envision AESC, a battery technology company, and Sunderland City
Council.

Nissan,
which has been manufacturing in Sunderland for 35 years, said 1,650 new jobs
would be created at the hub: 900 at Nissan and 750 at Envision AESC.

Speaking
to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday, Nissan’s Chief Operating Officer
Ashwani Gupta said the move demonstrated “our roadmap to … carbon neutrality.”

So-called
gigafactories — a term coined by Tesla
CEO Elon Musk — are facilities that produce batteries for electric vehicles on
a large scale.

Nissan
joins a number of other major automotive firms attempting to focus on the
development of batteries for electric cars.

Earlier
this week, French automaker Renault
announced it had signed “two major partnerships” related to the design and
production of electric vehicle batteries.

Back in
March, Germany’s Volkswagen announced it
was aiming to establish several gigafactories in Europe by the end of the
decade.

Chip shortage

While his
discussion with CNBC focused on Thursday’s announcement, the global chip
shortage is a reminder that the autos sector, like many others, is still facing
some headwinds.

Gupta
acknowledged the situation around semiconductors had been a “challenge, not
only for Nissan but for all the automotive manufacturers.”

“But let
me say that, post pandemic, this is [the] new normal, because we plan our
supply chain based on predictable scenarios, and this is [an] unpredictable
scenario.”

Nissan
had started to work on its digital supply chain system, he added, and how to
improve its forecast for better planning.

Gupta was
nevertheless bullish about his company’s prospects going forward. “We are
launching our new products as planned: We said we would launch 12 products in
18 months and we are,” he said.

He went
on to add: “So, although we are doing a minor production adjustment … on the
other side it’s a good problem for us to solve, which is: Not how to sell the
car but it is more how to make the car. So we have a good problem to solve, and
we are solving it and we will solve it.”