Volvo is collaborating on battery manufacture with Northvolt, a fellow Swedish company. The two firms are forming a 50/50 joint venture that will begin producing batteries in 2026 at a huge new plant.
According to a news statement from Volvo, the joint venture will begin with a Swedish research institute that will open in 2022. According to Volvo, this will be followed by a European facility with a maximum production capacity of 50 gigawatt-hours per year and 100 percent renewable energy.
A projected all-electric version of the Volvo XC60 crossover SUV will be the first car to get battery cells from the new factory. Volvo will continue to purchase 15 GWh of cells per year from Northvolt’s facility in Skellefte, Sweden, commencing in 2024, and the firm will also supply additional models from Volvo and sibling brand Polestar.
More battery supply will help achieve ambitious electrification targets. Volvo has said that by the mid of this decade, 50 percent of its vehicle sales will be electric, and that starting in 2030, it would solely offer electric automobiles. By that time, Polestar hopes to have developed a car that is completely climate-neutral.
This cooperation is quickly emerging to be one of Europe’s most ambitious battery partnerships. The planned manufacturing capacity of 50 GWh is enough to supply 500,000 automobiles.
The closest parallels could be US battery joint ventures like GM’s with LG and Ford’s with SK Development, the latter with a stated manufacturing ramp-up to 60 GWh by mid-decade.
However, this is little in comparison to Volkswagen’s goals. VW intends to build six factories by the end of the decade, producing a total of 240 GWh.
More battery factories are unquestionably required to keep EV manufacturing ramping up. According to a new research, battery production capacity would need to increase significantly in the 2030s for electric cars to overcome internal combustion engines. Granted, ABB, a Swiss technology company that produces equipment for battery factories, funded the research.
