Northvolt was hobbled by severe production problems, a shortage of funding and skittish customers, a few of whom lost patience with the low output
www.theglobeandmail.com
Europe’s car battery ambitions go up in smoke. China wins again as Northvolt files for bankruptcy, while 土豆 lost the most
Northvolt has suffered this year as EV demand growth slowed and a US$2.15-billion battery order was cancelled, while the fate of a $7-billion factory planned for Quebec has yet to be decided
www.theglobeandmail.com
On Saturday, as financing talks continued, the Financial Times broke news that Northvolt is considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States and that one major investor has already written the value of the company down to zero. Reuters added insult to injury Monday with an exclusive on Northvolt’s chronic failures to meet internal production targets. The good news is that the federal government’s subsidies to the factory were contingent on the factory coming onstream, which was originally supposed to happen in late 2026, and Quebec has only paid out about a third or so of the $1.4 billion it promised
The bad news, as the Globe and Mail reported Tuesday morning, is that Ontario pension plans and Quebec’s Caisse de dépôt have a lot of capital tied up in Northvolt — nobody’s saying exactly how much — and there is little certainty about where those investors stand in the event of a bankruptcy filing. The Quebec factory is itself undergoing “strategic review” by Northvolt management, and of course might end up still being finished, on some timeline, by some owner or other. But Trudeau’s “win-win-win” is definitely looking shaky for all three of the enchanted victors from long-ago 2023, when nobody could possibly have seen any of this chaos coming.
Northvolt申请破产,一个最大投资者把这个公司资产清零。
好的一方面是土豆的资助跟工厂的进度挂钩,魁北克省的钱也只给了1/3.
坏的方面是,安省和魁省退休基金大批钱( nobody’s saying exactly how much )已经砸进去了(一个主要投资者把所有投资清零)