Britishvolt crashes

British electric vehicle startup Britishvolt went into administration on Tuesday and named EY as its administrator.

The company's attempts to sell a controlling interest fell through after months of uncertainty and worry for its 300 employees.

Last week, Britishvolt said it was in talks about a possible sale of the stake to an investor group that local media later identified as the Indonesian DeaLab Group. The group reportedly wanted a 95% stake in Britishvolt for a total of £198 million (US$242.8 million). The offer was met by a group of shareholders who offered the same amount for a smaller stake of 92.5%.

Britishvolt's board of directors reportedly decided last Friday that the second bid was "preferred", but by Monday it had been canceled after failing to win the support of 75% of shareholders.

The BBC reports that unnamed UK government sources have called for the company to go into administration "so more serious players can take on the project". Candidates mentioned in the report include Tata Motors, which recently said it would build a battery plant in Europe for its Jaguar Land Rover subsidiary; Envision, which owns the UK's only battery plant in Sunderland for Nissan; and a potential Korean manufacturer.

The Britishvolt site at Blyth in Northumberland is considered the ideal location for a battery gigafactory. The £3.8 billion project Britishvolt hoped to build would produce 30 gigawatt hours of battery cells, enough to power 300,000 electric vehicles a year. The company failed to advance its technologies and provide customer support for their commercialization.

Time is ticking for the UK to develop an internal EV battery value chain so that the automotive industry can transition to EVs and continue to contribute to the country's economy through exports.