Battery manufacturer builds giga factory in Germany

Dusseldorf In the tranquil heath, about an hour and a half from Hamburg, power storage for German electric cars will soon be built. The Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt wants to build its next gigafactory in the small town in northern Germany.

With a planned capacity of 60 gigawatt hours, it is significantly smaller than Tesla’s gigafactory in Brandenburg. But for the Scandinavian start-up it is only the second factory of this size outside of their home country. A recycling plant is to be built parallel to the battery factory.

“It was clear to us that the focus should be on Germany because we have a large number of customers here, high demand and engineering talent,” explains Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson in an interview with the Handelsblatt. In Heide there is also a perfect connection to the North German and Danish offshore wind farms, as well as the Nordlink power connection to Norway. Carlsson is not bothered by the fact that most of the major automobile manufacturers have their factories in the south of the country. The company already has purchase agreements with Volkswagen, BMW and Volvo.