Northvolt was hobbled by severe production problems, a shortage of funding and skittish customers, a few of whom lost patience with the low output
Europe’s last great hope to roll majestically into the global car battery business, Northvolt, has crashed. Another European wannabe tech giant has been humbled. China wins.
Northvolt was founded by two former Tesla executives in 2016, when the electric-vehicle business was pretty much a zero in Europe. But the ex-Tesla boys, aware that Tesla itself was destined for greatness under the hard-charging magician Elon Musk, evidently determined that European automakers would soon plunge headfirst into the EV pool and enjoy having a homegrown supply of battery materials.
The subsequent upheaval in the European car business did not help. European EV sales are going in reverse as high prices, range anxiety, lack of charging points, waning EV purchase subsidies and a thin range of models that appeal to young drivers – they want iPhones on wheels – repel buyers. The cost of Chinese batteries is falling fast, just as the Chinese solar panels did two decades ago and Chinese EVs are today. BloombergNEF says the average cost of lithium iron phosphate batteries has fallen by half in the past year to US$53 per kilowatt-hour. Not long ago, US$100 was considered virtually unattainable.
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