New Material Intelligence NMT | Volvo and Northvolt set up battery R&D centers to promote the construction of European factories

On December 10, the Swedish power battery company Northvolt and Volvo announced that they would establish a joint research and development center in Gothenburg, Sweden. The center is part of the research, development and manufacturing of batteries invested by Volvo with SEK 30 billion.
After the establishment of the R&D center, the two sides will also build a new battery manufacturing plant in Europe, specializing in the production of power batteries for Volvo pure electric vehicles and Polestar cars (an electric vehicle brand jointly invested by Volvo Car Group and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group).
Northvolt said that it is expected to determine the location of the new gigawatt factory in Europe at the beginning of 2022, start construction in 2023, and realize large-scale production in 2026, with an annual production capacity of 50GWh, which will provide batteries for about 500000 vehicles each year.
According to the information previously disclosed by Northvolt, Volvo Car Group also hopes to purchase 15GWh batteries from the existing Northvolt Ett battery factory in Sweden every year from 2024.
According to public information, Northvolt has obtained contracts worth more than 27 billion US dollars from major customers such as BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volkswagen, Volvo Cars and Polestar to support the company’s development plan, including the establishment of recycling capacity to achieve the goal of purchasing 50% of the company’s raw materials from recycled batteries by 2030.