Volvo and Northvolt Confirm EV Battery Alliance

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Volvo Cars (Gothenburg, Sweden) has teamed up with Europe's leading electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturer, Northvolt (Stockholm, Sweden), to open a research and development centre next year as part of a US$3.3 billion investment.

The companies have signed off on launching the R&D centre in Gothenburg, Sweden, next year that will create "a few hundred jobs" and which will be followed by the construction of a new battery manufacturing plant, or gigafactory, in Europe. The plant will produce next generation state-of-the-art battery cells, specifically developed for use in future pure electric Volvo and Polestar cars. The exact location of the plant is expected to be confirmed in early 2022 as the process enters its "final phase of selection." The R&D centre will be in close proximity to Volvo Cars' own R&D operations and to Northvolt's existing innovation campus Northvolt Labs in Västerås, Sweden.

The joint battery plant will have a potential annual capacity of up to 50 gigawatt-hours (GWh), which would supply batteries for approximately half a million cars per year. It will start construction in 2023, with large-scale production in 2026, and is expected to employ up to 3,000 people. Volvo has ambitious electrification plans, aiming to sell 50% pure electric cars by the middle of this decade and, by 2030, it aims to sell only fully electric cars. Volvo has claimed creating deep vertical integration was vital going forward so that it can be involved in developing and building the batteries itself.

Industrial Info is tracking a number of projects associated with Europe's first and largest EV battery project by Northvolt, located in Skellefteå, Sweden. The plant aims to start large-scale manufacturing this year with an initial annual capacity of 16 gigawatt hours (GWh), or enough batteries for 250,000 cars, and this will ramp up to at least 32 GWh by 2024, with the potential to expand to 40 GWh in the future. Last year, German automaker BMW (Munich) signed a 2 billion-euro (US$2.3 billion) battery deal with Northvolt to support its big push into the EV market. For additional information, see August 3, 2020, article - BMW Signs $2.3 Billion EV Battery Deal With Sweden's Northvolt.

"Our partnership with Northvolt secures the supply of high-quality, sustainably-produced batteries for the next generation of pure electric Volvos," said Håkan Samuelsson, chief executive for Volvo Cars. "It will strengthen our core competencies and our position in the transformation to a fully electric car company."

Peter Carlsson, chief executive for Northvolt, added: "Volvo Cars is an excellent partner on the road towards building up a supply of battery cells that are made in Europe with a very low carbon footprint, and that are optimized through vehicle integration to get the best performance out of the next generation EVs."

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