Britishvolt

Based on Wikipedia: Britishvolt

The Billion-Dollar Battery Dream That Vanished

In the annals of corporate hubris, few stories rival that of Britishvolt. Here was a company that, at its peak valuation, was worth over a billion dollars—yet never produced a single battery for sale. Its executives flew on private jets. Its staff enjoyed video yoga lessons from a personal fitness instructor. Its offices occupied a mansion in Northumberland and fashionable serviced suites in London's Mayfair. And then, almost as quickly as it had risen, it collapsed, leaving behind £160 million in unpaid debts and 300 people suddenly without jobs.

This is the story of Britain's great green hope, and how it all went wrong.

The Promise

The pitch was irresistible. As the world's automotive industry pivoted toward electric vehicles, Britain faced an existential problem. Without domestic battery manufacturing, the country's car plants would wither. Batteries are the heart of an electric vehicle—they can account for forty percent of the car's value. If Britain couldn't make them, Britain couldn't compete.

Enter Britishvolt, incorporated in December 2019 with a vision that seemed perfectly timed. The company planned to build a gigafactory—the industry term for an enormous battery manufacturing plant—that would supply British carmakers with the cells they desperately needed. The location chosen was Blyth, a former mining town in northeast England that had seen better days. The symbolism was potent: a clean energy future rising from the ashes of the coal industry, on the very ground where coal had once been loaded onto ships.

The site had genuine advantages. A deepwater port for shipping. Access to renewable energy from offshore wind farms. Rail connections. Room to expand. On paper, it looked perfect.

The Players

The company's founders cut interesting figures. Orral Nadjari, a Swedish former investment banker, became the public face of the venture. Lars Carlstrom, a Swedish automotive entrepreneur, served as chairman—until December 2020, when details emerged of a tax fraud conviction in Sweden. Carlstrom departed, later claiming the conviction had been "dredged up" only after he disagreed with the company's direction.

Behind the scenes, an American billionaire named William Harrison held shares through a company called Cathexis Holdings. Harrison also happened to own ISG, the construction firm that would build the factory. This arrangement—where the same person owned both the client and the contractor—raised eyebrows, though it didn't stop the project from moving forward.

Perhaps most surprisingly, it later emerged that the management consultancy EY (formerly Ernst & Young, one of the "Big Four" accounting firms) had been deeply involved from the start. Insiders described EY as instrumental in making Britishvolt a functioning enterprise. "They wrote the whole business plan from scratch, they did everything," one source said. The startup sometimes spent more paying consultants than it paid its own employees. Three senior staff members, including the chief financial officer, were hired directly from EY in 2021.

This detail would become grimly ironic later.

The Hype Machine

Britishvolt attracted serious interest. Lotus, the storied British sports car maker, signed a memorandum of understanding to be supplied with batteries. Aston Martin committed to developing energy cells together. Nadjari even had ambitions of wooing Tesla. The South Korean materials company POSCO Chemical agreed to supply cathode and anode materials—the critical innards that make a battery work.

In July 2021, plans for a £2.6 billion factory employing 3,000 people won approval. Construction began in September. The mining giant Glencore invested. So did Norway's Carbon Transition ASA. The UK government, eager to support domestic manufacturing, pledged £100 million through its Automotive Transformation Fund. Property investors came on board. By February 2022, Glencore had invested again, pushing Britishvolt's valuation past the billion-dollar mark.

The future seemed bright. Britain would have its gigafactory. The green industrial revolution was coming to Blyth.

And then the money started running out.

The Cracks Appear

The trouble with building a gigafactory is that you need to spend billions of pounds before you earn a single penny. Britishvolt was burning through £3 million a month on salaries alone, having hired nearly 300 people while still years away from producing anything to sell.

The spending was, by multiple accounts, extravagant. Expensive electric company cars for staff. A hospitality suite at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, a prestigious motorsport event. "Prolific" use of private jets. Those video yoga lessons. Top-of-the-range curved 4K computer monitors.

In August 2022, construction at Blyth was suspended. Nadjari resigned as CEO. The company issued a statement heavy with corporate euphemism: they were "ahead in enabling works" and taking time to "focus on design work" and "optimise the build process." The real story was simpler. They were running out of money.

The government had pledged £100 million, but the funding was contingent on reaching construction milestones. No milestones, no money. On November 2nd, 2022, the government refused to advance £30 million of its grant. Government officials, speaking privately, rated Britishvolt's chances of survival at fifty-fifty.

The company's published accounts, covering the fourteen months to January 2021, had already warned of "material uncertainties that may cast significant doubt on the company's ability to continue as a going concern." Those warnings had been ignored in the rush of optimism. Now they looked prophetic.

The Death Spiral

What followed was the corporate equivalent of watching someone drown in slow motion. Glencore provided emergency funding—less than £5 million, enough to keep the lights on for just five weeks. Executives agreed to work unpaid. Other staff took voluntary pay cuts, receiving only a quarter or half of their salaries in November.

The company desperately sought buyers. Two rival rescue bids emerged in January 2023. An Indonesia-linked consortium offered £30 million for 95% of the business—valuing Britishvolt at just £32 million, a far cry from its billion-dollar peak. Current shareholders countered with a marginally higher bid. The board was due to discuss both offers on January 13th.

The BBC reported that a last-minute "British consortium" might also bid. But unless a bidder secured 75% of shareholder support, administration loomed. Government officials were heard suggesting that collapse might actually be preferable—it would clear the decks for "more serious players."

On January 17th, 2023, Britishvolt went into administration. Nearly all 300 staff were immediately made redundant. The dream was over.

The Uncomfortable Questions

The appointment of administrators raised eyebrows. The firm chosen was EY—the same EY that had earned millions in consultancy fees helping to build Britishvolt, the same EY from which senior staff had been recruited. EY was now an unsecured creditor seeking to recoup its fees while simultaneously overseeing the company's dismemberment. Critics called this dual role a conflict of interest. EY earned around £3.5 million more as administrator.

The final accounting was brutal. Britishvolt owed up to £160 million to creditors. The Ashtead plant hire firm, a shareholder, took a £35 million hit. NG Bailey, an engineering firm that had worked on the Blyth site, lost £6.8 million. ISG, the construction contractor, was dealt a blow that contributed to its own collapse eighteen months later.

A planned acquisition of German battery businesses fell through. The Canadian expansion, once led by a former Quebec premier, had already been quietly abandoned.

The Aftermath

In February 2023, an Australian startup called Recharge Industries bought Britishvolt out of administration for £8.6 million—less than one percent of its peak valuation. The new owners, a subsidiary of a company called Scale Facilitation, promised to restart construction and pivot toward energy storage batteries rather than automotive cells.

The man behind the acquisition was David Collard, who had once been PricewaterhouseCoopers' youngest-ever partner in New York at age 32. His resume also included involvement in cannabis and personal protective equipment deals. He promised the Blyth site would ultimately create 8,000 jobs.

But the second act proved as troubled as the first. Negotiations over land rights dragged on. Disputes arose over power supply contracts. The county council's buy-back clause on the site—a safety mechanism to ensure the land wouldn't sit idle—kept needing extensions.

Then, in June 2023, Australian police raided Collard's offices in connection with alleged tax fraud.

By April 2024, Britishvolt still had not secured the financing needed to restart construction. The Blyth site was sold for redevelopment as a data center campus. In November 2024, Britishvolt entered liquidation—a final, irrevocable end.

What Went Wrong?

Nadjari, the former CEO, blamed government bureaucracy and delay. "The UK has missed a window of opportunity to build a battery industry," he told Sky News in May 2023. He accused the government, including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, of lacking "innovative thinking" and a "joined-up industrial strategy."

There is something to this critique. Gigafactories require massive upfront investment and long lead times. They need patient capital and stable policy. Other countries—China, Germany, the United States—have provided generous subsidies and clear regulatory frameworks. Britain's support was real but conditional, contingent on milestones that a cash-strapped startup couldn't reach.

But the government's defenders had a point too. Why should taxpayers fund a company whose executives flew private jets while years from generating revenue? Why release milestone payments when milestones weren't being met? The fifty-fifty survival odds weren't irrational; they were, in retrospect, optimistic.

Perhaps the deeper problem was that Britishvolt was always more promise than substance. A company that spent more on consultants than staff. A company whose business plan was written by the people it was paying. A company that valued optics—the mansion, the hospitality suite, the curved monitors—over the grinding work of actually building something.

The Bigger Picture

Britishvolt's failure matters beyond the £160 million in losses and the 300 lost jobs. It represents a missed opportunity in a race that Britain is losing.

The electric vehicle revolution is reshaping the global automotive industry. Countries that can manufacture batteries domestically will have leverage; those that can't will become dependent on imports, primarily from China. Britain's remaining car plants—making Minis in Oxford, Nissans in Sunderland, Jaguars and Land Rovers in the Midlands—need a domestic battery supply to remain competitive.

There are other battery projects in various stages of development. But Britishvolt was supposed to be the flagship, the proof that Britain could compete in this new industrial landscape. Its failure raises uncomfortable questions about whether the country has the capital, the patience, and the political will to build genuinely new industries—or whether it will remain stuck in a cycle of grand announcements, premature hype, and eventual disappointment.

The old coalyards at Blyth, where the gigafactory was supposed to rise, will now host a data center instead. It's not nothing—data centers create jobs, attract investment, consume enormous amounts of electricity. But it's not the same as manufacturing. It's not the same as making things.

Britain wanted a battery industry. What it got was a cautionary tale.