(Bloomberg) -- Volkswagen AG’s truckmaking brand Scania plans to equip all its future electric trucks with Northvolt batteries, in a vote of confidence for the cash-strapped Swedish battery maker as it works to seal up a rescue package.
“We are now shifting over. For the future, all of our currently sold battery electric vehicles will come with Northvolt cells,” Scania Chief Executive Officer Christian Levin said in a call with reporters on Monday. The volumes Northvolt is currently supplying to Scania are “satisfactory to us given the total market right now,” Levin said.
Scania’s decision to rely solely on Northvolt as its primary cell supplier underscores the importance of the Swedish firm to the truckmaker and its parent Volkswagen AG. Northvolt is in the final stages of locking up an emergency funding package of about $300 million in debt and equity as it works on a longer-term solution to shore up its finances and stabilize production.
“We are on our way out of our production hell. I think we have the toughest period behind us,” Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson said in an interview published over the weekend by newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
The CEO declined to say when the production rate would reach full capacity at Northvolt’s main plant in Skelleftea, near the Arctic Circle. The facility is currently operating at between 5% to 10% percent of total capacity.
Volkswagen, Northvolt’s biggest shareholder, has so far said that it will support Northvolt in scaling up battery-cell production, without offering much detail. Levin declined to provide details about any financing, but indicated that Scania will continue to support Northvolt.
“It lies in our interest to make sure they can continue to deliver cells to us,” Levin said. “So we can continue to deliver vehicles to our customers where we have a customer contract.”
--With assistance from Charles Daly.
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