Northvolt to Stop Production at End of June Without Buyer
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Bankrupt battery maker Northvolt AB will stop production at its last remaining factory in northern Sweden at the end of June if it fails to find a buyer before then, a person familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.
The plant in Skelleftea has been running one production line making cells for truck maker Scania CV AB ever since a court-appointed trustee in Sweden put the group’s business and assets up for sale in March. So far a buyer has not materialized.
Later May 22, a virtual meeting will be held for staff including the 900 people working at the factory and will be hosted by Chief Operating Officer Matthias Arleth, spokesperson Matti Kataja said separately by phone. He declined to comment on the details of the meeting but described it as a regular update.
Fast growth and a global footprint of planned factory projects became Northvolt’s undoing as costs at the manufacturer ballooned. In Sweden, its flagship plant was plagued by operational setbacks and challenges in trying to ramp up production. The company, once seen as Europe’s best hope of a homegrown battery champion, had amassed about $10 billion in debt and equity since being founded in 2016.
Scania Battery Assembly Plant in Sodertalje, Sweden. (Erika Gerdemark/Bloomberg)
Scania has been one of Northvolt’s most vocal backers and biggest customers, and had planned to rely on the manufacturer for batteries for its electric trucks. The truck maker in April agreed to buy Northvolt’s heavy-industry battery unit, including production capabilities, a research and development center, and a team of about 260 employees.
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Last month Scania CEO Christian Levin said the company had no ambition to buy the flagship factory from the bankruptcy estate. Northvolt has previously said it was discussing potential tie-ups with Asian competitors, but no savior has emerged from South Korea, and China’s CATL has also sought to tone down expectations.
Speaking in a recent interview, the billionaire founder and chairman of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., Robin Zeng, said that while the company is talking to several creditors about helping Northvolt, “it’s not certain yet” and “we have limited resources.”
Northvolt’s failure is not unique with Europe’s bid to build a regional battery industry to break China’s dominance faltering in other countries. U.K. battery startup Britishvolt Ltd. collapsed last year before it could open a planned $5.1 billion site in Blyth — just as CATL and Asian peers are expanding on the continent.
Northvolt has been looking for money since mid-last year and filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. in November with $5.84 billion in debt in one of the largest bankruptcies of 2024. It received about $245 million in a temporary lifeline in November from Scania, buying time to look for new industrial partners.
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The company’s woes had already led a number of other investors to write down their holdings last year. Northvolt’s major shareholders included Volkswagen AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s asset management arm and Swedish investor Vargas Holding AB.
The prospect of the flagship factory shuttering stands to cause major repercussions for the local area, which up until last year had seen an inflow of people coming to work at the plant and the ecosystem of industries that sprung up around it. Skelleftea has invested $10.4 million of public money into the industrial site.
“This whole area is planned for battery production,” City Director Kristina Sundin Jonsson said in an interview earlier this month. Not having production at the factory “will have a huge effect in the short run for Skelleftea,” she said in an interview last week.
