Volvo and Northvolt will build a Gigafactory to produce EV batteries in Sweden
The batteries will be used in Volvo and Polestar vehicles
The production will be led by the former head of Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory
Volvo and Northvolt announced that their plans to build a Gigafactory are coming along, with the start of production planned for 2025.
Northvolt is a Swedish battery manufacturer that was founded in 2016 in order to help European automakers, such as Volkswagen, BMW and Volvo to make the electric transition.
The two companies had announced a partnership a few months ago, but the plans for a new battery production facility have been detailed recently.
The Gigafactory will be built in Gothenburg, Sweden, where Volvo is headquartered. This facility is part of a plan that will also see the construction of a research and development center following investments of about $3.29 billion USD.
This factory will employ close to 3,000 workers and it will have an annual production capacity of 50 gigawatt hours, enough to power 500,000 electric vehicles per year.
This will make it one of the largest battery making operations in Europe and it will help Volvo achieve its goal to become an entirely electric automaker by 2030.
The batteries produced in this facility will be used in European-made Volvo and Polestar models. The possibility of using this factory to supply assembly lines in Asia and the United States seems to have been set aside due to shipping costs and regulations.
This means that similar facilities could be built on other continents to provide batteries for the company’s vehicles that are assembled locally.
In order to lead their first Gigafactory, Volvo and Northvolt hired the former head of Tesla’s brand-new Berlin Gigafactory, Adrian Clarke.
