RE: UK EV Battery Manufacturing23 Jan 2021 15:53
Hi LordSim,
To define where any vehicle is made, a certain percentage of the vehicle denotes the country of origin.
Can't remember the exact percentage, and too busy today to research, but for example, if say a car made in Sunderland only contains 33% of components made in the UK, it would not count as being made in the UK, as per the EU rules (apologies if you already know this).
So anything that increases that percentage, such as batteries made in this country would lessen the percentage of a vehicle made abroad, resulting in some vehicles being nearer to by definition, made in the UK, plus of course less expense re transport costs and not being held to ransom by EU countries for imported parts, particularly France.
I always thought the threat by Nissan to leave the UK re their car production was an empty threat, even allowing for a No Deal Brexit resulting in tariffs.
Nissan have factories spread over several countries, and if tariffs had been put on cars made in the UK for sales into the UE, the Sunderland factory would have been as busy as ever, making cars for a captive market, as many buyers of BMW, Mercs, Peugeots and the like would have turned to UK made vehicles as those imported here would have increased costs of several thousand because of those tariffs.
My next car will be a none EU made vehicle, possibly a Nissan, Toyota or Honda.
I am certain within a couple of years we will have mega EV battery industry.
Saying that, I am a great believer in Hydrogen powered vehicles, whichever way it goes, all good news for AFC.
So its no so much helping to sell out cars in the EU, it's more as paying less .