Volvo Cars’ battery manufacturer Novo Energy has announced layoffs in Gothenburg, making it yet another Swedish company in the sector to scale back operations, reports Salon24.
According to a statement from Novo Energy, 30% of the staff will have to say goodbye to their jobs at the company, with media reporting that this means the departure of around 120 people. In March 2024, the company began construction of a new factory in Torslanda on the outskirts of Gothenburg, which was to employ 3,000 people and be ready in 2026.
Novo Energy was founded in 2021 by Volvo Cars and another Swedish battery cell and system manufacturer, Northvolt, which is currently in crisis. Last autumn, it laid off 1,600 employees in three cities in Sweden due to production problems and a drop in orders.
Novo Energy representatives announced at the end of last year that, due to Northvolt’s failure to fulfill its agreement regarding its financial contribution to the company, Volvo Cars would become its sole owner. According to media reports, Volvo Cars is now looking for a new investor. The newspaper “Dagens Nyheter” also revealed in 2024 that Novo Energy had applied to the Swedish government agency for funding for the construction of the plant in Torslanda.
Meanwhile, Volvo Cars also announced last September that it would no longer seek to sell only electric cars by 2030 due to lower-than-expected customer demand. It also pointed to high electricity prices, poor development of charging infrastructure, and the withdrawal of governments of several countries, including Sweden, from subsidizing the purchase of electric cars.
In neighboring Norway, nine out of 10 new cars sold in 2024 were electric, with one report out of the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) showing record-low sales of combustion cars, fewer than 1,000 out of 130,000 sold in 2024 being gas-powered. The report also claimed only one in ten cars sold was not powered exclusively by an electric engine. This number also includes hybrid vehicles, which accounted for 8% of all sales. Every fifth electric car sold in Norway was a Tesla, with Volvo, Volkswagen, Toyota and Skoda following far behind.
In Poland, according to data from the Electromobility Counter launched by the Polish Automotive Industry Association and the Polish New Mobility Association, at the end of November 2024, there were 136,404 electric passenger cars on Polish roads, including 70,342 fully electric cars and 66,062 plug-in hybrids. The number of electric delivery vehicles and trucks was 7,833.
At the end of November 2024, there were 8,331 publicly available electric vehicle charging points in Poland. Thirty percent of these were fast direct current (DC) charging points, and 70% were slow alternating current (AC) points with a power of less than or equal to 22 kW.
