Ex-Tesla manager seeks US$4 billion for Europe’s biggest battery plant

STOCKHOLM: A former Tesla executive is trying to raise at least US$ 4 billion to build Europe’s biggest battery factory in Sweden to meet an expected surge in demand as the region’s automakers switch to electric vehicles.

Peter Carlsson, who managed Tesla’s supply chain before returning to his native country, believes European carmakers’ push into electric propulsion implies demand for batteries that far exceeds anything now planned.

Some carmakers want to ramp up battery production in-house, wary of the dominance of Asian players such as Panasonic Corp , LG Chem, and China’s CATL.

German company BMZ opened the first section of a battery plant last year while LG Chem is investing US$ 339 million in a factory in Poland, both of which include the manufacture of the battery cells.

Samsung SDI has said it will start production of batteries for electric vehicles in Hungary in 2018, establishing an integrated production system ranging from battery cells to packs.

Carlsson’s company Northvolt is looking to rival the scale of Elon Musk’s Gigafactory in the Nevada desert – targeting annual cell production equivalent to 32 gigawatt hours when the plant hits full gear in 2023. Production would be largely automated but the factory could potentially employ 2,500 to 3,000 skilled people.

The site would use cheap renewable energy and could source some key battery ingredients such as nickel, cobalt and lithium from within the Nordic region.

While the Tesla Gigafactory began mass production this year in partnership with Japan’s Panasonic, Northvolt has yet to identify a site for its project which would require investment of at least 4 billion euros ( US$ 4.2 billion) over six years. — Reuters