Volvo Cars and Northvolt will form a joint venture to develop the battery, which includes setting up a gigafactory for production and a research and development center.
Automaker Volvo Cars and battery maker Northvolt will build their combined battery plant in Gothenburg, western Sweden, the two companies said on Friday. The Sweden-based companies said the new 50GWh plant will create 3,000 jobs and create specially developed battery cells for use in pure electric Volvo and Polestar cars. Operations will start in 2025. The two companies said last year that they would form a joint venture to develop batteries, including setting up a gigafactory for production and a research and development center, with a total investment of about $3.3 billion.
Northvolt and Volvo said former Tesla executive Adrian Clarke had been hired to lead the production company.
Northvolt CEO Peter Carlson, who previously also worked for Tesla, told Reuters, “He has long experience building these types of factories alongside Tesla.”
Volvo Cars’ head of engineering and operations, Javier Varela, said access to fossil-free energy, skills and infrastructure were factors in choosing Volvo’s hometown of Gothenburg.
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 Gigafactory in the Swedish city of Skeleftia assembled its first battery cells in late December, making it the first European company to design and manufacture batteries in Europe.
Carlson said it was going as planned, though he said global supply-chain problems, semiconductor shortages and COVID-19 made it a challenge. “It hasn’t been the easiest time,” he said.
Volvo Cars, owned by China’s Geely Holding, aims to sell 50 percent of 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.
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