Nordic groups to split materials harvested from Norway’s large fleet of electric vehicles. Northvolt and Norsk Hydro are teaming up to recycle batteries from Norway’s hundreds of thousands of electric cars as part of Europe’s effort to build a green battery industry to take on Tesla and Asian rivals. The Swedish battery manufacturer — which last year raised more than €1bn from the likes of Volkswagen, Goldman Sachs and Ikea — and the Norwegian aluminium company will open a NKr100m ($10m)
“We believe we can be a frontrunner,” Arvid Moss, head of Hydro’s energy business, told the Financial Times. Emma Nehrenheim, Northvolt chief environmental officer, said that with electric car sales set for “hockey-stick growth” soon, “there’s going to be a similar trend in the recycling market a few years later”. Northvolt is the leading business in a push to develop European battery makers to supply the continent’s carmakers rather than Tesla or Panasonic. Founded by two former Tesla executives in 2017, Northvolt has one small battery factory close to Stockholm and is aiming to open a larger “gigafactory” in northern Sweden next year.
It is aiming to obtain half of its raw materials from recycled batteries by 2030 and chose Norway because of the country’s high number of electric cars, the result of generous government subsidies. Erna Solberg, Norway’s centre-right prime minister, welcomed the news of the new recycling hub. “Promoting the development of sustainable low-emission solutions, including electrification of the transport sector, has been one of the Norwegian government’s priorities for many years,” she said.