The UK taxpayer is throwing away £500million

The Sunday Times puts it at around £100 million without asking to repay it, so not sure how this compares with subsidies given by continental governments to car makers where it is a low rate loan instead of assistance in this case.

Remember that all the UK is getting here is jobs and some taxation, which is good. The big profit, as always, ends up on foreign soil showing how unambitious is most governments since the early '80s.

I think the issue here is that we compare Apples with Oranges.

The new factory will create 2000 automotive and supply chain jobs vs 10000 lost during the pandemic (as reported by the FT at the end of Jan 2021), so there is a net loss to the NE region when you open these numbers by region. The second point is that building batteries is, on average, a lowered paid job compared to building complete cars (as testified by ex-Tesla workers around the globe).

The conclusion is not that a subsidy is necessarily a bad thing. Still, a relatively little help will do very little for the industry, the ambition reflected in the money given to Nissan is like driving in first gear. On the other hand, imagine what 37 Billion squids thrown at the car manufacturing sector can do!

The shortfall matters because by 2027 British-made cars destined for the EU must source 55% of their value from the UK or EU to avoid tariffs. Batteries account for up to half of a car’s value.

Using an example of an EV with a 60kwh battery, and ave market cost of EV batteries supposedly $137 per kwh and falling, the cost of the battery would be around $8220 or less than £6000. Unless we are talking Dacia, I doubt that batteries would represent 50% of a vehicles cost in 2027. Unless we are being ripped off.....

about.bnef.com/blog/battery-pack-prices-cited-belo.../

It will be interesting to see what JLR decides to do - either manufacture their own batteries of buy them in. They will need to make a decision quite quickly, given their timescales to all-electric are quite soon.