It was a big surprise when Litten announced in early August that it was aimed at taking over the locations of Northviet in Sweden and Germany. After all, San Jose, in California, which was founded in 2015, was much smaller than Northvolt, and the development and manufacture of lithium salvor batteries, while Northvolt relies on NMC cell chemistry.
However, the acquisition plans are logical for the organizers and are now more and more realistic. With the approval of Inspekcheren För Strategisha Produkter (ISP), Lyten has all the approvals you need to seize Northvolt. According to bankruptcy manager Michael Cubo, the acquisition can be completed by the end of October.
This means that the Lyten will also take over the NorthVolt factory currently being constructed in Heide, Schleswig-Holstein. The factory is expected to have an annual battery production capacity of 15 GB. Northvolt has planned itself to create about 3000 jobs at the Northvolt Drei factory in Heide, as well as 6000 to 7000 jobs in suppliers and service providers. However, it is unclear to what extent Lyten intends to stick to these plans. In addition, the construction was not really very far away for a long time – in May, Northvolt was still mainly talking about infrastructure measures, and the site preparation for the actual building of the battery plant.
It is still not clear what will happen for 700 million euros in the subsidies promised by the federal government and the Schleswig-Holstein Northvolt project in Heide. It is not yet clear whether this amount could be transferred to Lyten. Northfolt had previously received 600 million euros of subsidies, which is now part of the insolvency procedures.
In order to advance its expansion in Europe, Lyten presented the European Administration team at the beginning of September. These are the former Northfolt managers who move to Lyten. The former main agent, Scania, who turned into Catl batteries due to insolvency, has already indicated that he is interested in Northvolt bumps again in the future and confirmed initial talks with the future owner.
On the contrary, Lyten suffered a setback in Canada: Lyten really wants to build a planned factory by Northvolt there as well, but Quebec Province withdrew from the project and does not want to pay any other benefits.
ndr.de
This article was first published by Florian Treiß for the German version
