Local British manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover also wants to assemble electric cars outside the UK.
The British government faces a "chicken or egg" dilemma, which comes first the battery factory or the presence of the electric car industry? One other serious problem, the UK does not have a supply of raw materials.
Bloomberg released a report related to the current condition of the automotive industry in the UK. For more than a decade, Britain has become the center of electric vehicle production for Europe. However, the situation is now starting to change.
The reason is that the country of Queen Elizabeth does not have a factory that produces reliable cells and battery packs. Recently, even the proud British automotive manufacturer, Jaguar Landr Rover, is thinking about moving production to Slovakia.
The decision is in line with JLR's cooperation agreement with Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt AB and Chinese manufacturer SVolt Energy Technology Co.
The only way for the UK to maintain its title as the home of electric cars in Europe is to accelerate the level of investment in the battery industry. "It's too late to maintain Britain's role as a major automaker," said Andy Palmer, former CEO of Aston Martin, quoted by Bloomberg on Saturday (28/5/2022).
Palmer is the person behind the successful birth of the Nissan Leaf electric car (EV) which is produced in Sunderland, England. "Unless there are other factors to encourage battery production in the UK, it is only a matter of time before the car industry here becomes a niche industry serving only the Rolls-Royce and Bentley brands," he concluded.
So far, the UK has not looked for battery investment. This is due to the scarcity of raw materials, high energy costs, minimal incentives, and the potential for imposing tariffs due to Brexit. In fact, the country has spent hundreds of millions of pounds for research on battery technology, but it has not boosted the scarcity of domestic batteries for production.
In the UK, there is only one battery plant in operation belonging to China's Envision Group. The manufacturer produces the needs of the Nissan Leaf, and only plans to expand capacity in the d2024 later.
A spokesman for JLR, which has produced 220,000 vehicles in the UK over the past year, said the manufacturer was exploring options for battery supply.
The government's Green Finance Institute's Coalition for the Decarbonisation of Road Transport has revealed that in order to maintain the current level of industry, the UK needs to boost battery capacity to 45 times its existing condition, or to 90 gigawatts.
“If the battery sector doesn't emerge in the UK, there is a lost opportunity cost of the financial benefits of batteries being taken elsewhere, and in turn the risk that the UK's existing auto industry could be reduced by moving to a co-location. with battery production," the group said.
Reflecting on these conditions, Indonesia's fate should be much better. The main message from the deteriorating condition of industry in the UK during this energy transition is to dominate the battery industry.
In order to give birth to the battery industry, even though there is a "chicken-egg" dilemma, at least Indonesia has spare capital for battery-making materials. The rest, depends on how strongly the government lobbied investors to build factories in the country, not just sending materials abroad. After all , so far, many battery investment commitments have been made.
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