Invest 20.8 billion! Volvo teamed up with Northvolt to build 50GWh battery factory

Volvo and Northvolt said in a joint statement that they will invest 30 billion Swedish kronor (about 20.8 billion yuan) to build a new battery factory in Gothenburg, Sweden, with an annual capacity of 50 GWH, which can meet the battery demand of about 500000 cars a year, mainly for Volvo and Polar (Polestar) vehicles, and is expected to start operation in 2025.

In addition, as part of the investment, the two sides will build a new R & D investment center, which is expected to be put into use this year. The new R & D center will work together to build batteries that provide long mileage and fast charging time for electric vehicles.

It is reported that Volvo and Northvolt have appointed Adrian Clarke, a former Tesla executive, as head of the plant.

According to the plan, Volvo plans to sell half of its vehicles by 2025 and only electric vehicles by 2030. The partnership with Northvolt will ensure Volvo's battery demand in Europe and drive its ambitious electrification plan.

For Polaris, the partnership has given further impetus to its growth ambitions in Europe and its commitment to achieve the Polestar 0 project (to build a truly climate-friendly car by 2030).

Data show that Northvolt is a battery start-up based in Sweden, founded in October 2016 by Tesla's former vice chairman of supply chain management Peter Carlsson and Paolo Cerruti, 's largest shareholder is Volkswagen.

Since 2017, Northvolt has completed financing from various sources many times. And from Volkswagen, BMW and other mainframe factories, as well as the support of the EU government.

Northvolt assembled its first battery pack at its factory in Skelleftea, Sweden, on December 28, 2021, meeting its goal of putting the plant into production by the end of the year.

In terms of capacity, the annual output of lithium-ion batteries planned by Northvolt at the initial stage of its establishment is 16GWhh, and then it can reach more than 40GWh.

With the vigorous development of the new energy vehicle industry, Northvolt has recently further expanded its planned capacity: its goal is to achieve about 150GWh battery capacity by 2030 and occupy a 25 per cent market share in Europe, equivalent to the batteries of 2 million Tesla cars.

In terms of orders, Northvolt officials said they had won contracts worth more than $30 billion from major customers, including BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volkswagen, Volvo and Polestar, to support its plans, including building recycling capacity to meet the company's goal of purchasing 50 per cent of its raw materials from recycled batteries by 2030.

With huge on-hand orders and clear production capacity planning, Northvolt pays more and more attention to the supply of raw materials and has already begun to "defend" and speed up the pace in 2021.

At present, it has reached close and long-term cooperation with Tianqi lithium industry, Xingyuan material, Divine material, pilot Intelligence, Kodali and other lithium enterprises in lithium hydroxide, diaphragm, electrolyte, lithium equipment, structural components and so on.

Northvolt aims to regain Europe's dominance in power battery supply from big Asian battery makers such as Ningde Times and LG Energy. But so far, Northvolt has no experience in mass production. What is the level of technology and whether it can smoothly promote the capacity planning with customers of various car companies as scheduled are the challenges that Northvolt needs to face.

The latest development is that Northvolt Ett will begin commercial delivery in 2022 to provide batteries of all sizes to customers in the automotive, industrial and energy storage sectors. At that time, people from all walks of life will be able to see the first answer paper handed over by Northvolt!