Northvolt to delay Canada factory and cut jobs to survive EV chill
Northvolt AB will cut a large number of jobs and sell or seek partners for its energy storage and materials businesses as Europe’s leading battery hope aims to survive by refocusing on its struggling first gigafactory in northern Sweden.
The Swedish manufacturer, which has raised more capital at US$15 billion than any other unlisted European start-up, has been heavily delayed by problems at its factory just below the Arctic Circle as well as suffering from European carmakers slowing their plans to move to electric vehicles.
Northvolt said on Monday that it would pause its cathode active material production, selling one site and buying instead from Chinese or Korean companies, as well as seeking a buyer or partner for its energy storage business based in Gdańsk, Poland.
The group, backed by Volkswagen AG, Goldman Sachs, BMW, Siemens and BlackRock, has been haemorrhaging cash and said that its cost-cutting plan would “regrettably include some difficult decisions on the size of our workforce”, currently at 7,000 workers.
It will also delay plans, according to executives, to build three more gigafactories — in a joint venture with Volvo Cars in Sweden and in Germany and Canada — but said it would provide further details on that and the number of job cuts later.
“Building a battery company from scratch is a profoundly capital-intensive and challenging endeavour. We have come a long way … Now it’s time to focus on the core, to learn from the past and to scale up our core business to make sure that we can meet our customers’ expectations and to help Europe achieve a sustainable battery ecosystem,” said Peter Carlsson, Northvolt’s co-founder and chief executive.
Europe’s car-making and nascent battery industries are facing an
Read more on financialpost.com
