Northvolt subsidiary files for bankruptcy

Following a series of setbacks, the turmoil at Northvolt, Europe’s battery manufacturing hopeful, is continuing with an application for bankruptcy having been filed by one of its subsidiaries.

The Swedish battery maker decided, in September 2024, to suspend the expansion of its Northvolt Ett project in Skellefteå – Europe’s first homegrown battery gigafactory. The company said that it would instead focus on ramping up the first 16 GWh of annual battery cell production capacity at the site “to prioritize commitments to its current automotive customers” while shelving a construction project that had aimed to add another 30 GWh of manufacturing lines.

Now, the Northvolt subsidiary managing the Ett expansion project has filed an application for bankruptcy at the District Court of Stockholm. According to the manufacturer, the move was made due to the financial situation of Ett Expansion AB, which has no direct employees.

All contact with Ett Expansion AB will from now on be managed by the bankruptcy trustee, the company said on Oct. 8, 2024.

Ett Expansion AB is one of more than 20 different entities within the Northvolt Group. The manufacturer said that “the application for bankruptcy does not relate to any of the other legal entities in the wider Northvolt Group.”

However, most of Northvolt’s operations have already suffered massive cost-cutting since summer 2024. The company has announced 1,600 redundancies and will close down or sell some sites as part of a strategic review launched in response to “macroeconomic uncertainties.”