Northvolt files for bankruptcy, CEO quits
Europe’s “green dream” Northvolt has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US after a rescue package failed to go through, leaving the battery maker with just one week’s worth of cash in the account. Cofounder and CEO Peter Carlsson, who spearheaded a costly expansion, has also quit.
The Swedish-owned battery maker filed for Chapter 11 in the Southern District of Texas, reports Bloomberg, with $5.8 billion debt. CEO Peter Carlsson, Telsa’s former chief products officer, stepped down from his role as CEO after the filing, but will remain onboard as advisor and director.
According to a statement, Northvolt said that its main factory will maintain business as usual during the reorganization, as the company now has a buffer from creditors, giving it time to restructure the balance sheet. However, the company said that this will not impact its business in Germany, and through the court process, Northvolt now has access to about $145 million in cash collateral. An additional $100 million in debtor-in-possession financing will be added to the pot via one of its customers, the report said.
In recent weeks, Northvolt has been in intense negotiations in the hope of securing a $300 million rescue package to give the company a bit more time to seek longer-term funding. But when that deal fell through, the battery maker was forced to seek protection from creditors via the Chapter 11 filing.
The company still has a $7 billion project in place in Quebec – a new campus that is set to include a cell production plant, battery recycling, and cathode active-material production facilities – and the bankruptcy won’t affect those plans, the company said on its website. “Northvolt Germany and Northvolt North America, subsidiaries of Northvolt AB with projects in Germany and Canada, are financed separately and will continue to operate as usual outside of the Chapter 11 process as key parts of Northvolt’s strategic positioning.”
The plant is expected to have capacity to produce 30 GWh of battery cell every year, with an expansion set to double that output, making it enough to power 1 million EVs. The Canadian government is putting $1.334 billion CND toward the project, with Quebec chipping in another $1.37 billion CND.
Northvolt has hit hard times in recent months, once thought of as Europe’s best shot to homegrown EVs and the makers of “the world’s greenest battery.” Enthusiasm mounted as the company opened the doors to its first plant in Sweden, in the small town of Skelleftea near the Arctic Circle, in 2021. Billions of dollars have been invested into the company, and Volvo, VW, and BMW rushed to place future orders.
All of this enthusiasm has been fueled by a vision to cut dependency on China by creating greener EV batteries using 100 percent recycled nickel, manganese, and cobalt. Plans were put in place to build factories in Gothenburg, in southern Sweden, and Poland, Germany, and Canada, all backed by huge government subsidies. Back in January, the company raised an additional $5 billion, firmly locking in its position as one of Europe’s best-funded startups and recipient of the largest-ever green loan in the EU.
But then things started going south, with Northvolt’s production problems and massive delays forcing BMW to cancel its €2 billion battery cell order with the company. This past May, Northvolt also announced that it pushing back its plans for an IPO until next year. The interim report that followed revealed the dire state of its finances and how far its production had fallen short of goals, with Carlsson admitting he had been “too aggressive” with the company’s expansion plan.
Since Northvolt has put in place a series of changes to reset the company’s course, including bringing onboard a new CFO, leaving the former CFO to focus solely on expansion plans. Plus the company started making cuts, including closing down its research center, Cuberg, in San Francisco and deprioritizing secondary businesses. At the end of September, Northvolt announced that it would cut 1,600 staff from three Swedish sites and about 20 percent of its international workforce.
Last month, Volvo started proceedings to take over their joint venture with Northvolt, while Volkswagen Group’s representative to Northvolt’s board stepped down this month. Sweden, for its part, is ruling out taking a stake to save its homegrown enterprise, Bloomberg reports. Carlsson had said last month that the company needs more than $900 million to permanently shore up its finances.
Photo credit: Northvolt
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Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
Read more: Thomas Built Buses debuts its next-gen electric school bus
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