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Reference News reported on July 15 On July 11, the German Wirtschaftswoche website published an article titled “Europe wants to be independent in batteries, but risks failure”. The content is compiled as follows:

In 2018, Northern Volt started construction of the Northern Volt 1 factory in Skellefteå, northern Sweden. According to the plan, one of the most ambitious industrial projects in Europe in decades will sweep across Europe from here. The battery startup has received strong support from the political circles and aims to break the oligopoly of foreign suppliers in the lithium battery field for many years.

Six years after its launch, the project has not yet been completed. Although the gate of Factory 1 is guarded, it is more like an entrance to a construction site than a factory gate. Even the executives are still working in container mobile homes. Every part of the factory is being adjusted and modified, as if it is still in the initial stage.

The expansion plan of Northern Volt is quite bold. Northern Volt plans to build the second and third factories in Poland and Germany respectively in the near future. The German industrial sector has high hopes for the third factory. The German political circles even regard it as a face-saving project. The German government hopes to prove that Germany can also engage in high technology and Europe is still competitive.

But now both industry and politics feel that Northern Volt has overestimated its own value. There are more and more reports about the difficulties encountered by Factory 1. BMW cancelled a large order for Northern Volt at the end of June, saying that this new battery company could not solve the problem of too high a scrap rate and it would take a long time to achieve mass production.

Northern Volt is in a critical transition period. It has so far produced lithium-ion batteries in labs and on small pilot lines, but now it needs to expand production capacity. Tesla faced the same problem with its first battery factory between 2015 and 2018.

Northern Volt is already struggling to achieve mass production. A cooling market is making matters worse. Demand for electric vehicles has stagnated in important European markets such as Germany and Italy; some planned battery factory construction projects in Germany may now be cancelled.

Car executives and investors are now wondering whether this is a temporary blip or means Europe will have to give up its dream of having its own battery industry.

In any case, if Europe abandons the dream of having an independent battery industry, it will only benefit other competitors. Maximilian Fichtner, a German battery expert, said that in terms of cutting-edge battery research close to production, "two centers have been formed, and almost all important innovations come from there." One center is in North America and the other is in Asia.