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There’s a simple reason why battery factories like the one announced today by Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata matter so much.
In much the same way as engines are the heart of petrol cars, batteries are the single most important component in an electric car.
They constitute most of the value of the finished product and, since they’re heavy and volatile, car manufacturers don’t like to transport them very far before putting them in their finished cars.
In short: if you want a fully fledged electric car industry, you ideally need a lot of battery factories – taking chemicals, pasting them onto electrodes and turning them into the cells that will go inside all these cars.
This is, in other words, about far more than just batteries: it’s about the wider car industry.
That helps explain why, right now, countries around the world are racing to build these so-called “gigafactories” (the term is a bit meaningless but ultimately just signifies a large-scale battery factory).
Economists argue on how wasteful this race is, but most industrial strategists say that if countries with car industries do not attempt to keep up, they are likely to see many if not all of those high-skilled manufacturing jobs depart for overseas.
Read more:
Fears for British car production without EU deal
Electric cars ‘will lead to £10bn tax shortfall’
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