UK EV start-up Britishvolt fell into administration on Tuesday and appointed EY as its administrator, Kallanish reports.

The company’s attempts to sell a majority stake have collapsed after months of uncertainty and anxiety for its 300 employees -- the majority of which have been made redundant with immediate effect (see related story).

Last week, Britishvolt said it was negotiating a potential stake sale to a group of investors, which later was named by local media as the Indonesia-linked DeaLab Group. This group reportedly wanted a 95% stake in Britishvolt for a total of £198 million ($242.8m). The offer was countered by a group of shareholders that bid the same amount for a lower stake of 92.5%.

Last Friday, Britishvolt’s board is said to have decided the second bid was the “preferred offer,” but by Monday that had been scrapped as it failed to gain support from 75% of shareholders.

The BBC reports that unnamed sources in the UK government expressed a preference for the company to collapse into administration “so that more serious players can take the project on.” Candidates mentioned in the report include Tata Motors, which recently said it would build a battery plant in Europe to supply its Jaguar Land Rover subsidiary; Envision, which owns the UK’s only existing battery plant in Sunderland for Nissan; and a potential Korean manufacturer.

Britishvolt’s Blyth site in Northumberland is seen as an ideal location for a battery gigafactory. The £3.8 billion project Britishvolt had hoped to build would produce 30 gigawatt-hours of battery cells, enough to power 300,000 EVs per year. The company has failed to advance its technology and secure customer support towards its commercialisation.

The clock is ticking for the UK to develop a domestic EV battery value chain to ensure its automotive industry can make the switch to EVs and continue contributing to the country’s economy through exports.

Commenting on the news, Mike Hawes, chief executive of the UK automotive trade body SMMT, said: “Today’s news is a blow, especially for Britishvolt’s 300 employees, but the UK’s promise as an EV battery production location remains, with strong demand, a skilled workforce, and attractive manufacturing sites, all providing a compelling investment proposition.”