Volvo, Northvolt is building a new electric car battery factory in Sweden
The new 50-gigawatt-hour factory will create battery cells specially developed for use in pure Volvo and Polestar electric cars. Operations will begin in 2025.
The car manufacturer Volvo Cars and the battery manufacturer Northvolt will build their joint battery factory in Gothenburg, the two companies said on Friday.
The new plant of 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) will create up to 3,000 jobs and make battery cells specially developed for use in pure electric Volvo and Polestar cars, say the Sweden-based companies.
The business will start in 2025.
The two companies said last year that they would form a joint venture to develop batteries, including setting up a gigantic factory for production and a research and development center, a total investment of about SEK 30 billion ($ 3.3 billion). Northvolt and Volvo said that former Tesla boss Adrian Clarke had been appointed to lead the production company.
“He comes with a long experience from Tesla as well as about how to build this type of factory,” Northvolt’s CEO Peter Carlsson, who also previously worked for Tesla, told Reuters.
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Volvo Cars’ head of technology and operations, Javier Varela, said that access to fossil-free energy, expertise and infrastructure had been factors in choosing Gothenburg, Volvo’s hometown.
The competition for talent is fierce, with most battery engineers based in Asia. Tesla and Asian companies such as LG and Samsung SDI are also setting up factories in Europe.
Northvolt’s gig factory in Skellefteå installed its first battery cell at the end of December, making it the first European company to design and manufacture a battery in Europe.
Carlsson said it went as planned, although he said that global problems with the supply chain, semiconductor shortages and covid-19 had made it more of a challenge. “It has not been the easiest time,” he said.
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Volvo Cars, majority owned by Chinese Geely Holding, aims to sell 50% pure electric cars by the middle of this decade and fully electric cars by 2030.
Northvolt, whose largest shareholder is Volkswagen, has so far received contracts worth more than $ 30 billion from customers such as BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volkswagen, Volvo Cars and Polestar.
First publication date: 5 February 2022, 17:56 IST