Swedish battery maker Northvolt has started shipping in the first half of this year, becoming the first European company to provide power cells to automakers.
Northvolt is a star company in the European battery industry. Although it was founded only six years ago, it has already received investments from BMW, Volkswagen, Goldman Sachs, Spotify and other companies, and received a private equity investment of $2.75 billion last June.
Northvolt announced that it has successfully developed a cylindrical battery with a diameter of 21 mm and a height of 70 mm and is ready for mass production, which means that the competition for cylindrical batteries will intensify.
It has also adopted brand names for its existing square and new cylindrical products — “Ling on berry Power” for cylindrical batteries and “Ling on berry Life” for square products. on berry Life” for square products.
Korean analysts believe that Northvolt will not be able to close the technology gap with Korean battery companies in the short term, but Northvolt will continue to compete for orders with other companies in the battery chain.
The global cylindrical battery market is said to be dominated by three companies, LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI and Panasonic. Of the three, Samsung SDI is expected to be most strongly affected by Northvolt. After all, Samsung SDI only has cylindrical and prismatic batteries, which are identical to Northvolt’s product lines and have obvious overlap of corporate customers.
It is worth mentioning that most of Northvolt’s customers are also Samsung SDI’s customers. Therefore, the competition between Samsung SDI and Northvolt is expected to intensify.
According to foreign media, Northvolt was requested by Volkswagen Group to start the cylindrical battery development project, and Volkswagen Group currently owns 20% of Northvolt’s shares, and Volkswagen is also Northvolt’s only guaranteed customer for cylindrical batteries, which is expected to be used by Volkswagen from 2025.
