Rebirth of England

Chapter 992 Power Shortage

To be honest, Barron has come to understand more and more why he was confused in his previous life - why did those European countries, Britain, France, Germany... end up so bad? Especially Britain, where the prime ministers changed one after another, and all the policies were meaningless, and they were completely lying flat and being ridiculed...

The reality is that there is a growing trend across Europe that they are suffering from a serious "moral illness."

Well, sitting on the throne of wealth that they acquired through plunder and slavery over the centuries and paved with countless bones, they make moral judgments on others.

America also often uses "civilization" and "values" to make excuses, but the problem is that America does this for profit. As long as the benefits are sufficient, even Mauritania (the only country that still has slavery) can become their closest partner...

Compared with the United States, many European countries, whether the government or the people, are really a bit like "naive". They can really harm their own interests because of the so-called "values"...

Even if Barron wants to increase the scale of British manufacturing, he will face many difficulties.

Although Britain's more complete welfare system for workers will increase the salary expenditure of industrial workers, this is not the biggest difficulty - you know, German auto workers' salaries can be said to be the highest in the world, but Germany's auto industry, at least for now, is still very strong.

In fact, even if the workers’ wages are higher, the proportion of the cost in a product like a car is not too high. What is more important is the improvement of the industrial chain.

Because most of Britain's automobile industry has been acquired by overseas capital, many of the parts of British brands including Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Mini have become heavily dependent on external supply.

It is not easy to gradually improve Britain's automotive industry chain. For example, the British Motor Group has made breakthroughs in electric cars, but they also face many difficulties when they want to expand their battery production base in Britain, including protests from local residents and environmental reviews from relevant British departments.

This means that they can only provide self-produced batteries for their high-end products, and the production capacity of this part of the batteries is still insufficient. The rest of the battery products can only be obtained from cooperative manufacturers such as CATL and BYD.

Many other automotive components also need to be imported from other European countries.

This has resulted in the British Motor Group being able to only manufacture their higher-profit high-end models in Britain; mid-range models, which face more intense competition, such as most of the Land Rover and Jaguar models, need to be manufactured in factories overseas.

Faced with China's lower labor costs and increasingly complete related industrial chains, these low- and mid-end products in the UK are simply unable to compete.

"Next, we will try our best to maintain the manufacturing scale of high-end models in the UK. In fact, the most suitable place to build a new production plant is Huaxia. But there is a problem. According to local policies, only joint ventures with local manufacturers are allowed to build factories there..."

Hearing Vandal Hawke's complaint, Barron said with a smile:

"We can try to talk to them about whether we can obtain wholly-owned ownership if we build our electric vehicle super factory in China."

Baron knew that the first car company in the original time and space to build a factory in China as a wholly-owned enterprise was Tesla. After that, China introduced new regulations, allowing new energy car companies to build wholly-owned factories in China.

Although Tesla was not allowed to build a factory in Shanghai until four years later, the two sides had already started many negotiations on this matter before that.

Barron plans to sound out Musk's attitude when he goes to America in a while. At that time, Tesla and British Motor Group can go to Shanghai to conduct relevant negotiations. By then, under the temptation of the two best-selling electric car brands in the world settling in Shanghai, it is very likely that the restrictions in this regard will be lifted in advance.

"In addition, we are also investigating the feasibility of building a battery production plant in Kolo."

The reason for making such a choice is that the interests of Kolo and Barron are closely linked, and with the popularization of local education, the quality of workers can be said to be the highest in West Africa. It is also because Kolo itself produces a large amount of phosphate, and phosphate rock is one of the important upstream raw materials for battery production.

Moreover, building a battery production plant in Colo will not face strict environmental scrutiny like in Europe, and the speed and scale of construction can be guaranteed.

In addition, because Cologne is an important energy supplier to the UK, Cologne is currently negotiating with the British government. If an agreement is reached, Cologne will establish the closest trade relationship with the UK, thereby obtaining the same trade conditions as other EU countries. As a battery supplier for the UK's electric vehicle production base, most import taxes will be exempted.

So what Barron said before about United Energy Group planning to build a nuclear power plant in Colo was not just some kind of bargaining chip for Cameron, but a real plan to do so.

After all, electricity is in short supply in the entire West African region. Currently, the electricity supply in Colo is the most sufficient in West Africa because of its investment in infrastructure.

But then the Kolo Development and Reform Research Center formulated an ambitious "industrial upgrading plan" for Kolo, which will create conditions for the development of Kolo's manufacturing industry.

If this is the case, after more factories and production bases are built, there will be a shortage of electricity supply in Kolo - just think about the obstacles caused by Vietnam's electricity shortage in the original time and space to their industrial acceptance, and you will understand how important the supply of electricity is to the manufacturing industry.

In addition, Kolo is close to the sea, which can be said to be the most suitable region in the West African Free Trade Organization for the construction of a nuclear power plant. After the nuclear power plant in Kolo is completed, in addition to solving the domestic power supply shortage, it can also very conveniently export electricity to neighboring countries including Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso.

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In this case, the disadvantage of slightly higher electricity costs of nuclear power plants is no longer a disadvantage.

Therefore, while British Energy Group was negotiating with China's CGN Group on cooperation on the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant, United Energy Group and West African Electricity Group were also negotiating with each other on the establishment of the Kolo nuclear power plant.

You know, Niger, which is close to Kolo, has rich uranium mines, which is also a very favorable condition for Kolo to build a nuclear power plant.

Now China General Nuclear Power Group is also trying to promote their latest nuclear power technology in the international market. It can be said that the two sides hit it off, and even China is willing to provide a full interest-free loan for this project - China itself has many investments in Kolo, and Kolo is very much welcome to repay their loans with oil and other materials.