The next few days are crucial for how it ends, according to sources who are part of Northvolt's negotiations with lenders and owners about support to rescue the company, according to the Financial Times.
Did not reach internal goals
At the same time, Reuters reports that Northvolt has not reached its internal production targets for the battery factory in Skellefteå since September. This includes, among other things, the goal of producing 100,000 battery cells per week by the end of 2024, which has now been removed by Northvolt.
The rule of thumb is that it takes approximately 100 battery cells to make an electric car battery and about ten times as many cells to make a battery for an electric truck.
Production at the Skellefteå factory "meets customer needs and the commitments we have made to them, and scaling up is making progress all the time", writes Erik Zsiga in a comment to TT.
"We never comment on rumors", is his response when it comes to reports that Northvolt would be just a few days away from seeking bankruptcy protection or bankruptcy.
"The dialogue about future financing is still ongoing with the parties involved, and when there is something to communicate, we will of course do so", he adds.
Capital-strong owners hesitate
Most people agree that there is a great need for an independent European battery manufacturer. But if it is Swedish Northvolt that is to take on this role, both an acute rescue package and a substantial capital injection of perhaps 10 billion kronor are needed – on top of the approximately 150 billion kronor that have already been invested in building the company.
State support from Germany and/or Sweden looks complicated, even if it would be possible to get political support for the idea, according to Engellau.
Should the states step in as owners and risk losing tax money? Or should they shoot in capital and guarantees that save a privately owned company, where the profits then go to private interests?
Northvolt's crisis follows a year marked by delayed deliveries and problems getting up to volume in the production of high-quality batteries, which, among other things, led to the German car manufacturer BMW withdrawing an order worth over 20 billion kronor in June.
The battery manufacturer, which has payment obligations of over half a billion kronor with the Enforcement Authority, has since September shut down several major investments, laid off a fifth of its staff and put the subsidiary Northvolt Expansion, which was building a new battery factory, into bankruptcy with debts of several billion kronor.
As recently as last week, Northvolt sold a factory in San Leandro, California. The company is simultaneously negotiating with car manufacturer Volvo Cars about the future of the factory building Novo Energy in Gothenburg, since co-owner Volvo Cars accused co-owner Northvolt of breach of contract.
A sign that the talks about how the company will be saved did not go well came last week, when major owner Volkswagen's representative on the board, Sven Fuhrmann, jumped off his assignment.
