Few will have missed news of Tata's decision to snub Spain in favour of a gigantic gigafactory right here in the UK. The company behind Coventry-based Jaguar Land Rover plans to plough £4billion of investment into the new battery-making facility in Somerset, creating 4,000 jobs for Tata Group alone.

On a trip to one of JLR's Warwickshire hubs last week, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak branded it 'a fantastic vote of confidence in the UK'. "Across the world, international businesses are showing that they are confident in the UK economy," he added. "They’re putting money behind that confidence and that is going to create real jobs and opportunity here at home."

Speculation the announcement might have a negative impact on plans for a West Midlands Gigafactory at Coventry Airport was quickly rubbished and rejected. Jim O'Boyle, Coventry City Council's jobs and regeneration chief, told CoventryLive Tata's decision was a 'win-win' for the UK's automotive industry and one that would inevitably benefit JLR's operations in Coventry and Warwickshire.

READ MORE: Council tax rises and cuts warning as Warwickshire faces financial pressure

The sentiments of Mr O'Boyle, who said it was 'full steam ahead' for the West Midlands Gigafactory, have been echoed by Dr Charles Tennant, a former associate professor at WMG at the University of Warwick. Dr Tennant, a former Land Rover Chief Engineer and past director at Tata Motors, is a regular contributor to CoventryLive on all things automotive.

You can read below his detailed reaction to the Tata announcement and what it means for the UK's automotive sector.

'Exceptionally good news'

"The owner of JLR – the Indian conglomerate Tata Group – has finally announced its plans to build an electric vehicle battery gigafactory and it is exceptionally good news for the UK following a game of cat and mouse with Spain. We now know that this £4bn investment is going to the southwest at Bridgewater, in Somerset, and will create up to 9,000 new UK jobs, including 4,000 directly employed by Tata.

"Some may say that it had to be located here near the JLR factories in Solihull and Halewood, but JLR’s CEO Adrian Mardell had already said that they could easily source the batteries from Spain if needed. The UK government has declined to say precisely how much it has cost to woo Tata here, but it is believed to be in the order of £500million – made up of grants from an automotive transformation fund and improved transport connections to the site.

"This support for advanced manufacturing was essential when you consider the eye-watering sums America and Europe are literally throwing at companies to ensure they get a slice of the action too. Now the government and politicians from all parties, as well as industry leaders, can be relieved.

"After a failed start with Britishvolt's gigafactory project in Northumberland – which is now owned by the Australian company Recharge Industries – and the West Midlands Gigafactory project at Coventry Airport in go slow, at last a credible project has been approved.

'This is a mega project'

"The difference here is that the Tata group can fund this outright, and they already have their anchor customer that is JLR who are now flat out developing a range of six electric cars for their Range Rover, Defender, Discovery, and Jaguar brands with a £15bn investment over the next five years. This is a mega project with an estimated capacity of 40 GWh (gigawatt hours) - twice the size of the average battery plant (making it one of the largest in Europe). It will produce up to 500,000 batteries per year when at full capacity – more than enough for JLR and probably half of the expected demand for batteries by UK carmakers by 2030.

"We do not yet know whether Tata (who have called their battery company Agratas) will partner up with an existing battery manufacturer. The industry is currently dominated by Asian companies, but they have said that Agratas will own the intellectual property for the battery cell chemistry and have already announced another plant to be built in Gujarat, India.

"There is already another gigafactory at shovel-in-ground status at the Nissan factory in Sunderland but that is much smaller at 12 GWh, enough for around 100,000 batteries per year exclusively for Nissan. That is owned and run by the Chinese company Envision AESC although the construction is being delivered by the UK firm Wates.

"The UK ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel engine cars from 2030 (apart from hybrids which have until 2035) means that establishing this critical supply chain here in the UK is vital. Other areas of competence required include electric motors, electronic drive units, and power inverters etc. Also, post-Brexit trade agreements mean that electric cars built here in the UK must have 45% local EU or UK content from next year or face a 10% tariff.

A vital step

"Whilst last year UK car output was just 775,014 – the lowest level since the 1950s and far from the 1972 peak of 1.92 million – the industry is still a vital part of the UK economy. More than 182,000 people are employed in car manufacturing with another 780,000 across the wider automotive sector.

"In addition, 80% of all vehicles produced are exported to around 130 countries around the world accounting for 10% of total UK exports and generating £77bn of trade. This makes a renaissance of the UK car industry, by taking it into the electric vehicle age, vital and it is great to see JLR and their superlative brands now pushing ahead to make this happen.

"JLR has been criticised for being behind on electric car production – after launching a single version of the Jaguar I-Pace in 2018 – but this surely puts them back on the front foot again. And all of this comes at a wonderful time of good fortune for JLR.

"After a few years of turmoil, JLR is on the right track now it has revved back into profit by halving its breakeven point to 300,000 cars per year whilst ramping up the average selling price from around £40,000 to just over £70,000. And they have a backlog of almost 200,000 highly profitable Range Rover and Defender orders to fulfil so their superlative cars are in hot demand.

"On another note, may we at the Coventry Telegraph congratulate Adrian Mardell who has just been appointed full CEO status at JLR. Adrian (a 30-year veteran of JLR) has led the company to three consecutive quarters of profit and is spearheading the drive to vehicle electrification with his fully aligned board of directors and highly skilled workforce and suppliers."

For all the latest Coventry news, sign up to our daily newsletter.