Britain's plans – to become a leader in the field of manufacturing electric car batteries – faced a major setback with the collapse of the project to build its first giant factory in this field. The factory was supposed to be built on a plot of land purchased by British Vault with support from Glencore, but the company entered into liquidation in January 2023 before it could implement its ambitious plans.

This collapse led to the loss of more than 200 jobs, leaving Britain without a large domestic manufacturer of electric car batteries.

This failure represents a major blow to Britain's hopes of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. It relies heavily on importing electric car batteries from China.

This land, which Blackstone has acquired, is now out of reach of plans to manufacture electric car batteries in Britain. This reduces the space available to build a huge factory, yet Britain still offers incentives to increase domestic production of electric car batteries, such as cheap land and exemptions.

Despite these challenges, new car sales in Britain rose significantly in February 2024, driven by companies purchasing electric cars for their fleets, and the number of registrations rose by 14% year-on-year, the best February performance since 2004.

This growth was mainly driven by investments in corporate fleets, while electric vehicle sales to individuals saw a decline.