600 UK auto jobs at risk as Volta Trucks plans for bankruptcy

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About 600 UK automotive jobs are at risk after electric lorry start-up Volta Trucks said on Tuesday it was planning to file for bankruptcy, becoming the latest new electric vehicle entrant to falter.

The private Swedish company began production of its electric 16-tonne truck in April using a contract manufacturer Steyr Automotive in Austria, but it ran into difficulties after its battery supplier, Proterra, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the US in August.  

That lowered the number of vehicles Volta could make and made it harder for the company to raise additional capital, the board said on Tuesday. As a result, it had taken the “difficult” decision to begin bankruptcy proceedings.

“The main trading entity of the group, Volta Trucks Limited, will shortly file for administration in England, with insolvency practitioners from Alvarez & Marsal anticipated to take office,” the company added.

Most of Volta’s engineering and development work was carried out in the UK, with about 600 of the company’s 850 staff spread across sites near Reading, Nuneaton and Gaydon. 

It was one of dozens of EV start-ups that emerged in the past decade, driven by the relative ease of developing a battery vehicle, compared with a traditional engine-driven vehicle, and spurred on by cheaper financing.

Many of those businesses have since struggled to produce vehicles, while several have already run out of funds, because of global market uncertainty and growing investor scepticism about the long-term prospects of new EV players.

Lordstown Motors, a business formed in order to save a defunct General Motors factory in Ohio, filed for bankruptcy over the summer, followed by China’s WM Motor more recently.

Arrival, a UK business that has scaled back its once-lofty ambitions and laid off most of its staff, has also warned investors it was seeking lifeline funding to prevent its collapse.  

“Like all scale-ups in the EV manufacturing sector, Volta Trucks has faced challenges along the way,” the company said. 

The bankruptcy of its battery supplier “had a significant impact on our manufacturing plans, reducing the volume of vehicles that we had forecast to produce”, it added.

“The uncertainty with our battery supplier also negatively affected our ability to raise sufficient capital in an already challenging capital-raising environment for electric vehicle players.”

The business had about 5,000 pre-orders for vehicles, and had begun delivering finished trucks to some customers across Europe, with plans to scale up manufacturing. It had raised €300mn from investors, which included Swedish group Byggmästaren Anders J Ahlström.