Northvolt AB is a Swedish battery developer and manufacturer, specializing in lithium-ion technology for

electric vehicles An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes cha ...

History

The company was founded as SGF Energy in 2015 by

Peter Carlsson Peter Carlsson (born 13 April 1963) is a former professional tennis player from Sweden. Career Carlsson was a quarter-finalist at the Tel Aviv Open in both 1985 and 1986. The Swede defeated Jason Stoltenberg in the opening round of the 1987 A ...

(now chief executive), who was formerly an executive at Tesla Motors. In 2017, the company changed its name to Northvolt. It was founded with the aim to supply the

automotive industry The automotive industry comprises a wide range of company, companies and organizations involved in the design, Business development, development, manufacturing, marketing, and selling of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest industry ...

with

electric vehicle batteries An electric vehicle battery (EVB, also known as a traction battery) is a rechargeable battery used to power the electric motors of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) or hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). Typically lithium-ion batteries, they are sp ...

. In May 2019, the

European Investment Bank The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's investment bank and is owned by the EU Member States. It is one of the largest supranational lenders in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt solutions ...

offered a loan of 3.5 billion SEK (about €350 million).

Maroš Šefčovič Maroš Šefčovič (; born 24 July 1966) is a Slovak diplomat and politician serving as Vice-President of the European Commission for Interinstitutional Relations since 2019, previously holding the office from 2010 to 2014. He has been member o ...

, the

European Commissioner for Energy The European Commissioner for Energy is a member of the European Commission. The current Commissioner is Kadri Simson, in office since 1 December 2019. Responsibilities The Commissioner holds responsibility for the European Union's energy poli ...

at the time, said that "I welcome the significant support proposed by the EIB to Northvolt gigafactory as a stepping-stone towards building a competitive, sustainable and innovative value chain, with battery cells manufactured at scale, here, in Europe." In June of the same year, companies such as the BMW Group,

Volkswagen Group Volkswagen AG (), known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The company designs, manufactures and distributes passenger and commercial ...

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...

and

Folksam Folksam is one of the largest insurance companies in Sweden. The company headquarters are located in Stockholm. Folksam consists of the two mutual insurance companies Folksam sak and Folksam liv. Folksam is today a Swedish insurance company only, a ...

announced that they would invest in the company. In total, the investments amounted to 1 billion US dollars, framed as a way to challenge what was reported as the dominance of

Tesla, Inc. Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles (electric cars and trucks), battery energy storage from home to grid- ...

and Asian companies such as

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

and

Nissan , trade name, trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells ...

on the market for electric vehicle batteries. The company started building a battery factory in

Skellefteå Skellefteå (, locally ) is a Cities in Sweden, city in Västerbotten County, Sweden. It is the seat of Skellefteå Municipality, which had 73,246 inhabitants in 2021. The city is historically industrial, with mining being a large part of that i ...

, Sweden, with the aim to start production of

in 2021. The first battery in

was assembled in December 2021, and the production for commercial uses is planned to start in 2022. In 2019, Volkswagen and Northvolt announced that a second factory would be built in

Salzgitter Salzgitter (; Eastphalian: ''Soltgitter'') is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven ''Oberzentren'' of Lower ...

, Germany, aiming to start production in 2023–2024. The aim was to start production at 16

GWh A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...

, and increase it to 24 GWh. In May 2020, Volkswagen announced that it would build the factory largely on its own, and invest 450 million euros in the construction. On 16 July 2020, it was announced that Northvolt and BMW had signed a deal of 2 billion euros, for Northvolt to deliver batteries starting from 2024. On 30 July 2020, a €350 million loan was issued to Northvolt by the

with the backing of the European Union’s InnovFin programme to build a demonstration line for a new type of battery which it started producing at the end of 2019. As part of the ''Investment Plan for Europe'', Northvolt received a $350 million loan for its Skellefteå factory from the EIB, using the guarantee of the European Fund for Strategic Investments. News website

EURACTIV Euractiv (styled EURACTIV) is a pan-European news website specialised in EU policies, founded in 1999 by the French media publisher Christophe Leclercq. Its headquarters and central editorial staff are located in Brussels,with further offices in ...

stated in an article that "Northvolt is quickly building a reputation as the EU’s go-to company for home-grown batteries." On the same day, it was announced that Northvolt had been issued loans amounting to $1.6 billion USD from a consortium of commercial banks, pension funds and other financial institutions.

Manufacturing sites

Northvolt has a factory in

, northern Sweden, part of Northvolt's plan to increase production capacity of 32 gigawatt-hours by 2023. Its headquarters for research and development is in

Västerås Västerås ( , , ) is a city in central Sweden on the shore of Mälaren, Lake Mälaren in the province of Västmanland, west of Stockholm. The city had a population of 127,799 at the end of 2019, out of the municipal total of 154,049. Västerås ...

, Sweden.

The opening of a factory in Skellefteå was said to potentially transform

subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of humid continental regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and the Cairngorms. Generally, ...

Sweden, and dramatically change the city. It was however said that it could be a potential risk with shortage of qualified labour in the region. The factory will be the largest in Swedish history, creating challenges for newcomers and the existing community. As the energy-hungry battery plant is strategically sited near renewable energy sites, part of the company's stated goal to make "the greenest cell on Earth". In late December 2021, the company announced that the Skellefteå Northvolt Ett ("One") gigafactory, with 500 workers, had produced its first batch of prismatic cells, as part of its machinery commissioning process. Factory completion and initial customer shipments are expected in 2022. The company projects battery output of 16 gigawatt hours (GWh), enough for ~300,000 EVs, by 2024. With full production lines and staffing, the plant expects to produce 60 GWh of batteries with 3,000 employees.{{Cite news, last=Mukherjee, first=Supantha, last2=Soderpalm, first2=Helena, date=2021-12-29, title=Northvolt battery plant sparks into life, a first for Europe, language=en, work=Reuters, url=https://www.reuters.com/technology/northvolt-produces-first-battery-cell-sweden-gigafactory-2021-12-29/, access-date=2021-12-30

References

Swedish companies established in 2015 Electric vehicle battery manufacturers Manufacturing companies based in Stockholm Battery manufacturers