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Point and apart for the soap opera of the Great European hope In the battery segment for electric cars. In the European assault on electric car industryVolvo and the Northvolt battery manufacturer founded Novo Energy. Both were Swedish and it was a Join Venture with the aim of producing batteries in Europe.
It seemed that everything was going to be A ROSA pathbut a few years later and after thousands of layoffsNorthvolt sell His participation in Novo Energy A Volvo. And behind Volvo is Geelyan important Chinese holding.
Culebrón. Things stopped going well for Northvolt practically from the beginning. During the first years, the European Investment Bank, BMW, Goldman Sachs or Volkswagen invested sums of hundreds of millions of euros in the company. The Swedish company, founded by two Exegutive of Tesla, became the great European promise to create batteries and be the heart of that European flying towards the electric car.
In a market increasingly controlled by ChinaIt seemed like a great idea and everything pointed in good sense. In addition, together with Volvo they founded Novo Energy in 2021 to produce the batteries of both Volvo and Polestar. However, things began to twist in 2023, when it was uncovered that the company had been operating with losses of 1,000 million dollars during the first nine months of the year. And, in 2024, the situation exploded.
Last nail in the coffin. Everything happened very fast. After the delays in the delivery dates, BMW canceled its agreement of 2,000 million euros, there were a series of employee deaths in work shifts, fired more than 1,600 workers in September and, shortly after, the bankruptcy arrived. In November 2024, Northvolt requested bankruptcy protectionarguing that they had 30 million in cash and, with them, they could only operate for a week. The hole they had was 5.8 billion dollars.
A skinny dog, everything is fleas, and a day later one of the founders resigned, arguing that the company would need 1.2 billion dollars to save itself. After a few days of 2025 in which the company was still looking for financing, something that nobody seemed willing to do, sales arrived. It was even rumored that Catl, the main Chinese rival in battery manufacturing, I could give a hand.
Volvo. After getting rid of some services, this January 29 we learned that the Swedish company sold its participation in Novo Energy to its partner in this adventure, Volvo. It is something that does not catch by surprise, since, as with BMW, Volvo saw that Northvolt’s delivery plans were not being fulfilled and in October last year he showed his interest in acquiring participation in Novo.
Last week, Novo Energy advertisement which had to reduce its workforce by 30% due to “the changing market conditions and a modified business plan”. Northvolt wants to reduce everything possible and focus on its Swedish plant, but they have also signed an agreement with Volvo to explore joint collaboration paths in the future, so everything is not lost.
China looks out to Europe. Therefore, Volvo will now be the one Novo Energy, we will see if alone or with partners, but the interesting thing about this operation is that, although Volvo is a Swedish company that is in the bag of his country, the matrix is Geely, A Chinese holding. They are present in multitude of companies and sectors, with an important participation in Mercedes-Benz, Aston Martin or Lotus, as well as co-owners of smart, polestar and with a participation of more than 80% in Volvo.
It is curious that Northvolt was born to stand up to the Chinese battery industry and that the Join Adventure That I had with Volvo to produce batteries in Europe, now, is controlled by a Chinese company, in the absence of seeing the resolution of the authorities. And all this, shortly after Tariffs imposed by Europe To the Chinese electric car.
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