Nov. 2 (UPI) — Struggling British electric vehicle battery company Britishvolt announced Wednesday it secured enough funding to keep it from going under.
Employees at a firm that was once a center-point of the British governments electric vehicle plans also agreed to a pay cut to help with corporate finances.
Britishvolt was founded three years ago and had proposed a massive battery factory for northeast England, earning favor with the government of former center-right British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fellow Conservatives.
The company halted work on its planned factory in August in an effort to conserve cash. Britishvolt had managed to attract investor capital but struggled to secure enough financing to move forward in earnest. Opposition leaders in the Labor Party said earlier this week they expected the company to go under.
The company said in a statement published by CNBC that it had some recent success in securing financial support with the help of investors.
“The result is we have now secured the necessary near-term investment that we believe enables us to bridge over the coming weeks to a more secure funding position for the future,” the statement read. “To further reduce our near-term costs, our dedicated employee team has also voluntarily agreed to a temporary salary reduction for the month of November.”
Most major economies are struggling to build up their supply chain of the batteries necessary to support the increase in sales of electric vehicles. The plant envisioned by Britishvolt would have the capacity to produce more than 300,000 EV batteries annually. Construction on the facility was expected to begin by late 2023, supported by a memorandum of understanding with Aston Martin.
Some of the recent financial support for Britishvolt, meanwhile, came from metals supermajor Glencore, London’s Evening Standard reported.
A mandate in Britain calls for an end to the sale of new diesel- and gasoline-powered vehicles by 2030.
