Northvolt is backing out of battery chemicals

The European battery leader Northvolt is scaling back plans to manufacture battery chemicals and will focus instead on producing finished battery cells. The company’s retrenchment because of slow growth in electric vehicle sales follows similar decisions at other battery players, such as BASF and Umicore. Northvolt is closing its cathode material plant in Sweden, canceling plans for a second plant in the country, and laying off workers. The firm says construction of a Canadian battery cell plant and design work for cathode and recycling plants in Canada will continue. In August, Northvolt also closed down Cuberg, the US lithium-metal battery start-up it acquired in 2021, and moved its lithium-metal research to Sweden. Northvolt is continuing a strategic review of its business and could streamline further. But CEO Peter Carlsson says he still believes that the long-term outlook for the battery industry is promising. “There remains no question that global transition