Preferred bidder for Britishvolt emerges

Recharge Industries, Australia, has emerged as the preferred bidder to buy Britishvolt, the collapsed UK start-up.

Reuters reports that Recharge Industries is leading the pack to save Britishvolt - the start-up that planned to fund a major electric vehicle (EV) battery factory in Northumberland.The deal is three weeks after Britishvolt fell into administration and revives hopes of building a UK EV battery industry.

Recharge is a division of the New York-based portfolio company Scale Facilitation, and are beginning a large-scale lithium-ion cell factory in Australia.

Britishvolt had previously planned to build a £3.8bln, 38GWh plant in Blyth to manufacture EV batteries. The company only managed to raise £200mln by summer 2022 and pushed back its production timeframe.