A previous Tesla executive, Peter Carlsson, is aiming to raise a minimum of $4 billion to develop Europe’s biggest battery factory in Sweden to fulfill an anticipated rise in demand as the area’s automakers switch to electric vehicles.
Carlsson, who managed automaker’s supply chain before going back to his native country, thinks European automakers’ push into electrical propulsion means demand for batteries that far surpasses anything now prepared.
Some automakers wish to increase battery production in-house, careful of the dominance of Asian companies such as Panasonic Corp, LG Chem, and China’s CATL.
German company BMZ started the very first section of a battery plant in 2016 where as LG Chem is investing $339 million in a factory located in Poland, both of which include the manufacture of the battery cells.
Samsung SDI stated it will start production of batteries for electric cars in Hungary in 2018, establishing a combined production system ranging from battery cells to packs.
Carlsson’s company Northvolt is aiming to compete the scale of Elon Musk’s Gigafactory in the Nevada desert – targeting yearly cell production comparable to 32 gigawatt hours when the plant strikes complete gear in 2023.
Production would be mostly automated however the factory could possibly employ 2,500 to 3,000 proficient individuals. The site would utilize low-cost renewable resource and could source some essential battery active ingredients including nickel, cobalt and lithium from within the Nordic area.
While the Tesla Gigafactory started mass production this year in collaboration with Japan’s Panasonic, Northvolt has yet to recognize a site for its project which would require investment of no less than 4 billion euros ($4.2 billion) for 6 years.
“I am really optimistic that we can bring both industrial financiers in addition to institutional investors,” Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson, a former head of supply chain at Tesla, stated on the sidelines of a presentation
