London, May 26, 2021 – Japanese carmaker Nissan is in “advanced” talks with the government over a new electric car battery plant in the north-east of England, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

The talks are part of a post-Brexit plan to make Sunderland the group’s largest high-volume electric vehicle site outside of Japan, according to the business newspaper.

Citing people briefed on the talks, the FT said the proposed plant at Nissan’s existing facility in Sunderland would be managed by Chinese battery supplier Envision AESC.

The facility would support the production of 200,000 battery-powered cars per year and create thousands of jobs, he added.

A spokesperson for the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) did not confirm the project, but stressed its commitment to the industry, saying officials “continue to work closely together with investors and automakers “.

BEIS also referred to a ‘major investment program’ of £ 500m ($ 708m, € 578m) recently pledged by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to support the electrification of British vehicles and their chains. supply.

Britain plans to ban sales of gasoline and diesel vehicles from 2030 as it targets net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

This means that the country’s largely foreign-owned auto industry must shift to producing fully electric cars.

Separately, a Nissan spokesperson told AFP he did not intend to announce immediately, saying only that Sunderland had “a pioneering role in the development of the electric vehicle market.”

The automaker established the first UK production of electric vehicles and batteries in Sunderland in 2013 with its Leaf car.

However, Nissan’s largest European plant has been plagued by uncertainty after Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016.

The Japanese firm had warned that a no-deal Brexit would threaten the site, which also manufactures Juke and Qashqai cars.

But Nissan pledged its future in January after Johnson finally struck a Brexit trade deal with the bloc.

The largely foreign-owned UK auto sector was one of the big winners in the final Brexit deal, which allows duty-free trade with the continent.

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