Europe tools up against US and Asia as a car battery force

Surrounded by a forest of tall green pine trees, 125 miles south of the Arctic circle, a giant electric battery factory is rapidly taking shape on a site as big as 71 football pitches. slot wallet

The project will be a gigafactory, a term coined by Tesla founder Elon Musk to describe his first high-volume plant for producing lithium-ion electric battery cells, deep in the Nevada desert.

Startup Northvolt, co-founded by two former Tesla executives, is in Skellefteå, a much chillier location, in northern Sweden.

But from here, as well as a base in Västerås just outside Stockholm, it is hoping to provide a quarter of Europe's electric batteries, as demand for electric vehicles surges amidst the global race to cut carbon emissions.

By 2030, 40% of all new cars sold will be electric according to the latest forecast by the investment bank UBS, rising to almost 100% of the new car market by 2040.

"If you look at the agenda for all the automotive manufacturers to actually make those electric cars, the amount of cells that you'll need to access, is going to be humongous," says the plant's manager Fredrik Hedlund.