LONDON (Reuters) -UK electric vehicle (EV) battery startup Britishvolt, which has struggled to raise funds for a large factory in northern England has made an application to appoint administrators, a court document showed on Tuesday.
The filing is a blow to Britain’s auto industry, which officials and experts say needs EV battery plants to keep much of the country’s car production from shifting to mainland Europe.
Britishvolt had been in talks with potential buyers, including some of its early investors, after securing a short-term funding lifeline in November to help keep it afloat.
A majority of the staff at the company were told on Tuesday that they were being made redundant with immediate effect, according to a source familiar with the matter
Britishvolt had previously outlined plans for a 3.8 billion pound ($4.64 billion) 38 gigawatt-hour plant in England’s industrial north to build electric vehicle batteries.
But by the summer, Britishvolt had only raised around 200 million pounds and had pushed back its production timeline.
The UK government under former prime minister Boris Johnson had touted Britishvolt’s project as a major milestone toward building an EV industry as the country heads toward a ban on combustion engine cars in 2030.
Britishvolt had received backing from mining giant Glencore, which kicked off a funding round for the startup last February.
($1 = 0.8189 pounds)
(Reporting by Michael Holden, Sachin Ravikumar and Nick Carey, Editing by Kylie MacLellan and Louise Heavens)
