We’re joining forces with Northvolt to deliver a new R&D centre and battery plant
Our agreement with battery technology company Northvolt is now fully signed – it’s an important part of the puzzle as we prepare for our all-electric future.
Our joint venture with Northvolt can help us improve battery technology as we strive to become fully electric by 2030.
We've said it before: announcing we'll be an all-electric car maker by 2030 is one thing, getting there is quite another. A lot of work is going on to make sure we can deliver on that ambition. One way of doing so is to ensure that the right partnerships and collaboration deals are in place. Today, we seal the deal on a very important piece of our electric puzzle.
This summer, as part of our Tech Moment event, we announced a planned partnership with Northvolt – our fellow Swedes who know everything about developing and building battery cells in a sustainable way. In recent months we've crossed our legal T's and dotted our financial I's, which means that there's now a final agreement in place.
Worth an investment of around SEK 30 billion, our two companies have set up a new joint venture in which we'll develop and sustainably manufacture batteries for the next generation of Volvo (and Polestar) cars. To make that happen, we'll set up a new research and development centre in Gothenburg, Sweden, as well as a shiny manufacturing plant in a yet-to-be-named location in Europe.
The plant will start operations in 2026 and create up to 3,000 new jobs. The R&D centre will be up and running already next year, with a few hundred new jobs.
"Our partnership with Northvolt secures the supply of high-quality, sustainably-produced batteries for the next generation of pure electric Volvos."
"Our partnership with Northvolt secures the supply of high-quality, sustainably-produced batteries for the next generation of pure electric Volvos," said Håkan Samuelsson, chief executive for Volvo Cars. "It will strengthen our core competencies and our position in the transformation to a fully electric car company."
The location for the new R&D centre is chosen deliberately, of course. By placing it within the automotive cluster around Gothenburg and close to our own R&D facilities, we can realise a variety of synergies and efficiencies in the development of new battery tech. It just talks so much easier if you can go and grab a coffee with some colleagues down the road, doesn't it?
As for the plant, we're now in the final selection process for a suitable location, with only a handful of candidates left. The plant will have a potential annual capacity of up to 50 gigawatt hours, which translates to batteries for approximately half a million cars every year. By early next year we expect to be able to announce the location for our new plant.
Working with Northvolt allows us to create a true end-to-end system for our batteries, whereby we are involved in all parts of the process ourselves: development, sourcing, manufacturing and second-life planning. Just like we develop our cutting-edge safety tech in-house, such vertical integration allows us to control the process for creating our batteries from A to Z.
That has two major benefits. First of all, we can be as efficient as possible and control costs, because batteries are the largest individual cost component in an electric car. Secondly, we can ensure that our batteries fit our electric Volvos like a well-tailored suit and deliver on the things our customers expect from our cars: a good range and short charging times.
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