Volvo and Northvolt announced plans today to build their previously announced battery gigafactory in Gothenburg, Sweden and hired a Tesla executive to lead the new plant.
It will have an annual capacity of up to 50 GWh to support the production of 500,000 electric cars per year, with operations aimed to start by 2025.
Northvolt is a battery startup founded by two former Tesla executives who worked on Tesla’s first Gigafactory in Nevada with Panasonic.
The company planned to recreate the “gigafactory” concept of having a giant battery factory producing in the “gigawatt-hour” level of battery cells for electric cars.
It received backing and started factory projects with several automakers, including Volkswagen, and last year, it added Volvo to the list with a plan to build a new battery factory in Europe to support the Swedish automaker’s EV ambitions.
In December, Northvolt announced that it started battery cell production at its first gigafactory – lending more credibility to its several other battery factories in partnership with automakers.
Today, Volvo and Northvolt released a joint announcement to confirm that their plans for a new gigafactory are moving forward in Gothenburg, Sweden:
“Volvo Cars and Northvolt have selected Gothenburg, Sweden to establish a new battery manufacturing plant which will commence operations in 2025, create up to 3,000 jobs, and complement the planned R&D centre that both companies announced in December as part of an investment of approximately SEK 30 billion.”
Construction on the new factory will start next year in order to start producing cells in 2025.
Once fully ramped up, the companies aim for the new facility to produce 50 GWh, which Volvo says be enough to support the annual production of around 500,000 electric vehicles for itself and Polestar.
Specifically, the new factory is going to be built in Torslanda, Gothenburg – near Volvo’s biggest car plant.
Håkan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Cars, commented on the announcement:
“Our battery cell partnership with Northvolt is key to our strategic ambitions in electrification. We are committed to becoming a leader in the premium electric car segment and selling only pure electric vehicles by 2030.”
Peter Carlsson, Co-Founder and CEO of Northvolt, added:
“Establishing this gigafactory in Gothenburg is a decisive move, both to continue to transform one of the most dynamic automotive regions in the world, and to become the leading global supplier of sustainable batteries.”
The two companies also announced that they hired Adrian Clarke from Tesla to lead the new factory.
Clarke was the design lead at Tesla for Gigafactory Nevada and worked with Carlsson and Paolo Cerruti (founders of Northvolt) on the giant battery factory.
Most recently, Clarke took over from ‘Mister Gigafactory‘ to lead the Gigafactory Berlin effort for Tesla.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he was leading “overall factory design, procurement, construction and factory operations, and maintenance organizations” for Tesla at Gigafactory Berlin before being hired away by Northvolt last month.
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