According to foreign media reports, a senior executive revealed that Northvolt plans to invest 750 million US dollars to expand its laboratory in Sweden to meet the battery needs of car companies in the process of electrification transformation.
Northvolt, which aims to compete with leading Asian battery companies such as Ningde Times and LG Chemical, said it would build "the first R & D park covering the entire battery ecosystem". About 80 per cent of the world's lithium batteries come from China, but as demand rises, battery capacity in Europe will increase rapidly, and Northvolt aims to have a 25 per cent market share in Europe by 2030.
Northvolt plans to start production at its Swedish plant this year and plans to open a new office in (Vasteras), Westeros, to increase the number of employees there from 400 to at least 1000, and to create a new center to experiment with battery technology and electrification.
"Westrose is developing very fast, so we are competing for land here," Peter Carlsson, chief executive of Northvolt, said in an interview. He revealed that the company will hire about 5000 engineers here in the next five years. "I also have slides of the original concept here," he said. "We didn't choose Westrose at the time, and our initial budget was about $80 million."
In the fight against Tesla, a number of European carmakers are interested in using Northvolt batteries on their electric vehicles. Northvolt has received funding from Volkswagen, Scania, the European Commission and Spotify founder Daniel Ek, and has raised more than $6.5 billion so far.
In June, sources said Northvolt was valued at $11.75 billion after completing its latest round of financing. Over the past few years, electric vehicles and related industries have been very attractive areas for investors, who have driven up the market capitalization of companies such as Tesla and Lucid Motors.
