Battery Industry News recently, Northvolt announced that 20% of the global layoffs and decided to suspend the expansion plan to ease the company's growing financial difficulties.

This is only part of the company's plan to reduce spending.

A series of measures announced not long ago also include: suspending the Swedish selevteo super factory battery production of cathode materials; Canceled the plan to build a material factory in Gothenburg, Sweden; Negotiate with potential partners and investors for Poland's energy storage business.

This decision Northvolt highlights the severe challenges faced by the European electric vehicle industry.

01

successive market shocks

in Northvolt, the suspension of production expansion was affected by external challenges such as insufficient production capacity, declining demand for electric vehicles and intensified international competition.

It is understood that Northvolt was established in 2016. At that time, standing in the power battery outlet, it was also enthusiastic, completing 13 financing in succession, and striding to plan production capacity. It is planned to build four battery Super factories in Sweden, Sweden, Gothenburg, Germany, Hyde and Montreal, Canada.

According to the plan of Northvolt, it is expected to achieve a production capacity of about 150GWh in 2030.

Sweden's selevteo factory is the first battery factory in Northvolt. According to the planned 16GWh design capacity of the factory in 2023. However, since the start of construction, it has not been fully put into operation for more than three years, and the current annual shipment volume is less than 1GWh.

For this reason, BMW even canceled the 2 billion euro battery order with Northvolt when the delivery deadline expired.

At the same time, there is a phenomenon of insufficient consumption in the European electric vehicle market.

In Europe's largest auto market, the number of electric vehicle registrations in Germany decreased by 37% compared with the same period last year to 30762; The number of electric vehicle registrations in Sweden also declined, in July, the registration volume of new electric vehicles decreased by 15% year-on-year.

Volkswagen therefore announced that it would cut the production capacity of Germany's high-cost factories and possibly change the progress of its battery production expansion; Mercedes-Benz also adjusted its electric transformation plan to slow down the goal of "full electric power in 2030.

Due to insufficient market demand and difficulty in improving production capacity, Northvolt had to reduce project planning, thus finding a balance between maintaining operation and minimizing losses. However, one of the links in which the above-mentioned layoff decision reduced the project expenditure mainly focused on the company's expansion project in selevteo. Northvolt previously said that the production of cathode materials in the factory was suspended.

02

why can't a good battery be made

about Europe and AmericaThe problems faced by battery enterprises, Zeng Yuqun has made a rare voice recently.

In Zeng Luqun's view, the two factors of personnel training and production thinking have hindered the development of battery industry in Europe and America.

He said that European battery companies could not produce good products because of problems in design, technological process and equipment. On the basis of these problems, European battery enterprises will definitely encounter the problems of utilization rate, reliability and safety in the future. The stacking of these problems makes its capacity difficult to expand.

Some people think that the technology is not mature enough and the processing quality rate is not enough, which is also one of the reasons why it is difficult to improve the production capacity of Northvolt. A person familiar with the matter revealed that Northvolt now needs to buy positive active materials from Chinese or South Korea suppliers.

In fact, this also reflects the shortage of European raw material supply chain.

The shortage of key mineral resources in Europe and the lack of control over the exploitation and extraction of key raw materials such as lithium, cobalt and graphite have always troubled the domestic battery enterprises in Europe.

According to a report, EU and UK electric vehicle manufacturers can only obtain 16% of the lithium, cobalt and nickel needed for the target production in 2030.

It is understood that after the replacement target of electric vehicles was clearly put forward by many countries in 2021, Europe once set off an upsurge of developing lithium resources. Among them, the largest lithium mine project is the Jadar project in Serbia.

Jadar lithium mine is a project located in the Yadar Valley in Serbia, with a planned capacity of 58000 tons, which can meet the demand of 1.1 million cars, and its output accounts for 17% of the total output of European lithium mine. However, the project was stopped in 2022 and just got back on track in July this year after two years of game.

This alsoIt means that it will take a long time before Jadar lithium mine project is put into production, and European battery enterprises without industrial chain support are still alone.