Scania starts looking for alternatives to Northvolt

Northvolt was dealt as Europe’s best bet to counter Chinese battery giants. However, the Swedish company has been struggling for some time. Production is far from reaching the targeted volumes, which is why BMW cancelled an order worth billions. And Northvolt announced a rescue financing round to help the company raise 300 million dollars.

One of the few pieces of good news in recent weeks is that Scania wanted to equip all its future electric vehicles with Northvolt batteries. “We are now shifting over. For the future, all of our currently sold battery electric vehicles will come with Northvolt cells,” Scania Chief Executive Officer Christian Levin said at the end of October.

Around two weeks later, it sounds a little different. Levin told the news agency Reuters: “We talk to everyone in order to make sure that we are not going to end up in problems if they (Northvolt) have problems.” However, Levin declined to name the other battery cell manufacturers.

He reiterated Scania’s desire to stick with Northvolt, which makes “the only green cell in the industry.” “We support them in any way we can,” he said. After all, Scania has developed a special electric truck battery with Northvolt.

The truck manufacturer always planned to involve other suppliers as it anticipates an increase in electric vehicles in the coming years, Levin added in the Reuters interview. Scania wants electric trucks to account for 50 per cent of sales by 2030. Today, electric trucks account for only one per cent.

Scania is part of Volkswagen’s Traton Group. Volkswagen, in turn, is Northvolt’s largest shareholder and owns 21 per cent of the company. In 2021, Northvolt and Volkswagen also signed a supply contract worth 14 billion dollars for the next 10 years. However, it remains to be seen whether Northvolt will be able to honour it. VW subsidiary Audi is said to have recently withdrawn an order from Northvolt.

Given its problems, Northvolt announced in September that it would cut around 1,600 jobs in Sweden. Northvolt has also suspended the expansion of the cell factory in Skellefteå.

In March, Northvolt began constructing a cell factory in Heide in northern Germany. It was initially scheduled to open in 2026, but Northvolt is currently rethinking the timetable. The fact that the state of Schleswig-Holstein intends to transfer funding totalling 137 million euros to Northvolt this year could help speed up implementation. This is to be followed later by 564 million from the federal government.

The problems at Northvolt are also causing concern in Berlin. The German government is “in constant dialogue with the company and the Swedish government regarding the restructuring work in Sweden. The activities of the German government and its involvement in the talks serve to stabilise the further development of Northvolt’s cell production in Germany and – as a prerequisite – also the business activities of the parent company in Sweden,” wrote Udo Philipp, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection.

reuters.com, bmwk.de (Germany)