Tata Sons battery company Agratas will own the intellectual property on batteries made at its new plant in Somerset and it intends to offer them to other companies besides Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Tata Motors, the company has said.
The JLR owner announced on Wednesday it will spend £4 billion to build a 40GWh plant in the West Country, with production set to start from 2026.
The big question surrounding the investment – after the location – had concerned the ownership of the cell chemistry, but Tata has now said the formula will be owned by Agratas itself, the new Tata battery company set up to build batteries both in Somerset and in a previously announced plant to be built in Gujarat, India.
“Agratas is an IP-heavy and capital-heavy company,” Pathamadai Balaji, chief financial officer of Tata Motors, said at the company investor day held at JLR’s HQ at Gaydon in June.