Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Scania wants to form a consortium to buy Northvolt’s research laboratory to retain critical battery expertise in Europe, the Swedish truck company’s boss has said.
Christian Levin told the Financial Times that Scania was in talks with other investors including the Swedish government and European Commission to buy Northvolt Labs, the beleaguered Swedish battery maker’s R&D department, out of bankruptcy.
“We are trying to form a consortium [that] would part-finance that but we cannot do that alone, it’s simply too much even for a big company like ours,” Levin said.
He said that the Northvolt Labs had some of the smartest researchers in Europe and had “huge value.”
Northvolt invested about $750mn to establish its R&D facility in 2021. Scania has already agreed to buy Northvolt’s industrial battery business for an undisclosed sum as part of a broad restructuring of Europe’s biggest battery start up after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last November.
Levin said that the implosion of Northvolt — once feted as one of the great hopes for the transition of European industry from fossil fuels to clean technologies — had been a “huge problem” for the EU’s vehicle industry as it raced to meet increasingly demanding emissions reduction targets set by Brussels.
Scania is a subsidiary of Volkswagen, Northvolt’s biggest shareholder with a 21 per cent stake.
The truck company was still buying Northvolt batteries as the company was being kept running during the bankruptcy, despite vast financial outflows, but it was also finding alternative sources, Levin said.
“That’s going to be Asian suppliers and we’re going to ramp that up already right after summer,” he said, adding that some customers were not happy that they would not be able to have a European battery on board “with a very low carbon footprint”.
Northvolt Labs employs more than 1,100 people and is the centre for its work on advanced materials for next generation batteries and battery recycling.
The R&D facility is described by former Northvolt executives as the company’s “crown jewel”.
However, former employees have told the FT that issues such as mismanagement and poor quality control that plagued Northvolt’s battery factory also affected the R&D facility in Västerås.
Many Swedish and EU officials consider the laboratory crucial in keeping Northvolt’s technological knowhow in European hands at a time when the EU is trying to prevent Chinese domination of critical clean technology supply chains.
Northvolt itself made overtures to Asian battery manufacturers over a possible sale before it was declared bankrupt. The Swedish bankruptcy trustee has continued talks with several interested parties but said late last month that it was winding down all activities at its battery factory by the end of June.
Levin said that conversations with government officials both in Brussels and Stockholm for public backing had not been successful so far.
The Scania boss also warned that the EU truck companies were at serious risk of missing emissions reduction targets set for 2030 because of a lack of demand for electric trucks and could therefore face millions of euros in fines.
Battery electric trucks only made up 3.5 per cent of sales in the first quarter of 2025, he said. That would have to increase to 35 per cent to meet the 2030 emissions standards.
The EU industry was the top seller in many markets, but required domestic scale to ensure it could continue to compete globally, Levin said.
“If we don’t get to a certain volume [of sales] we will just be too expensive and then we cannot compete in China, we cannot compete in south-east Asia. And then of course, it’s just a matter of time before the players who have scale will move into Latin America or other areas where we’re very strong.”
He added that while the future of the industry was electric, EU regulations should be amended to allow for trucks using alternative low-carbon fuels, and electric trucks that use range extenders to continue to be sold.
Northvolt’s bankruptcy trustee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
