Tata’s £4bn gigafactory plan fills in a major blank for UK car industry

Tata’s new plant will produce batteries with 40 gigawatt hours (GWh) of capacity a year, enough to power hundreds of thousands of electric cars. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

For months Tata, the owner of Jaguar Land Rover, has left the UK automotive industry on edge. Would it build an electric vehicle battery “gigafactory” near its UK car plants, or would it be tempted by Spain, which offered an attractive deal? On Wednesday it finally offered a definitive answer: Tata will build a new factory in the UK.

The plant will require £4bn in investment and will provide thousands of jobs in a region not known for its automotive industry if, as expected, a site in Somerset passes final due diligence checks. However, its importance will be measured in more than just jobs or pounds: it will show that the UK has a place in the next era of the automotive industry as electric technology replaces the combustion engine.