Volvo Trucks postpones construction of commercial vehicle battery cell plant in Sweden

Volvo Trucks cites insufficient demand for electric vehicles as one of the reasons for the postponement. The company made this statement to several media outlets, some of them local. “We are looking over what would be an optimal time schedule for the construction of the factory. What we know now is that the building start will be 12-24 months later than [the] previous plan,” a spokesperson told Reuters. Construction was originally scheduled to start in 2024 and, following a change of plan that has since been publicised, in 2025.

It is still unclear to what extent the start of series production of the battery cell factory in Mariestad, which was scheduled for 2028, will be postponed. “We don’t know if this will bring any change to the production start/serial production, but the aim is to time the ramp-up of production with the demand of battery-electric applications and not build up a much larger operation than the market,” Reuters quotes the company spokesperson as saying.

In any case, the Swedish company hasn’t yet provided any concrete information on the production capacity of the cell factory. So far, it has always been stated that the factory’s capacity is to be gradually increased and reach the level of large-scale production by 2030. There are also no more detailed statements on the type of battery cells that will be produced there – for example with regard to cell chemistry or format. When the plans were announced, it was only stated that the battery cells would be developed specifically for commercial vehicle applications and will support “the global introduction of electric trucks, buses, construction machinery and electric drives for various applications.”

Until now, Volvo Trucks has sourced its battery cells from Samsung SDI. For the FH, FM and FMX electric truck models, the cells from the South Korean supplier are assembled into ready-to-install battery packs by Volvo Trucks in Ghent, Belgium.

reuters.com, svt.se (in Swedish)