Battery maker Northvolt announced that its gigafactory in Skellefteå, northern Sweden, has assembled its first lithium-ion battery cell on Tuesday, December 28.
The cell is the first to have been fully designed, developed and assembled at a gigafactory (a large-scale battery plant where the yearly output is measured in gigawatt-hours) by a homegrown European battery company, and is being looked upon as a new chapter in European industrial history.
The majority of the world’s electric car batteries are currently made in the US and Asia, but Northvolt hopes to change that. The Swedish manufacturers, valued at $12 million by investors in June, compete with Tesla’s battery-making division.
The first cell of Northvolt is a milestone for the company, which was announced in 2017.
The cell is of a prismatic cell format. Commissioning and upscaling of the factory will continue through into 2022, when the first commercial customer deliveries will be made.
Peter Carlsson, CEO and Co-Founder of Northvolt, said: “Today is a great milestone for Northvolt which the team has worked very hard to achieve. Of course, this first cell is only the beginning. Over the course of the coming years, we look forward to Northvolt expanding its production capacity greatly to enable the European transition to clean energy.”
The battery cell was developed at Northvolt Labs, Northvolt’s industrialisation factory in Västerås, Sweden, which has been in production since early 2020. In the coming years, production capacity at Northvolt will increase towards 60 GWh per year to fulfill over $30 billion worth of contracts Northvolt has secured from key customers, including BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volkswagen, Volvo Cars and Polestar.
To these customers in the automotive, industrial and energy storage sectors, Northvolt will deliver cells of varying formats with commercial deliveries beginning in 2022.
Presently, Northvolt employs over 500 people, representing 56 nationalities, in Skellefteå.
According to CNBC, the company has raised more than $6.5 billion from a host of investors to help it expand its operations. The latest funding round, Northvolt’s largest yet, was co-led by Goldman Sachs and VW, alongside new investors including Swedish pension funds AP1, AP2, AP3, AP4 and Canadian pension provider OMERS.
Battery range is expected to be the biggest USP of cars in the future as most companies chamge their product plans with greater impetus on electric vehicles. Last month, Nissan unveiled an ambitious $17.6 billion plan, which will see them introduce 23 new electrified models by end of year 2030 and pump in large capex into development of proprietary all-solid-state batteries.
