Northvolt CEO confident he won't ask for more public money

The entrance to Northvolt, the new EV battery plant being built by the Swedish manufacturer in Saint-Basile-le-Grand, east of Montreal, Que.,Thursday, May 16, 2024. (Christinne Muschi / The Canadian Press)

Northvolt’s North American CEO suggested that the Swedish company may have been over-ambitious but reaffirmed that it had no intention of asking governments for more money for its planned lithium battery plant in Quebec.

Paolo Cerruti was addressing hundreds of representatives from the electric vehicle industry on Monday morning in Montreal at the International Conference on Advanced Lithium Batteries for Organized Automotive Applications.

The “last few months and weeks have been difficult” and we're going through a “crucial period in the history of our company,” said Cerruti.

He reiterated that Northvolt is in Quebec “to stay,” but it remains unclear how the Swedish company's restructuring will affect the Montérégie plant's projects and schedule.

“Work is still in progress, and we don't have all the answers yet. We're doing this work day and night so that we can come back with answers to all the questions, which will take us another few weeks,” he said.

In September, Northvolt had announced the dismissal of 1,600 employees in Sweden, a fifth of its workforce, illustrating the financial difficulties facing the company.

Speaking to reporters, Cerruti said Northvolt has no intention of asking Quebec or Ottawa for more money.

“We have a financial support schedule as part of what was announced in September last year and we have no plans to ask for more money and, as part of the company's recent refinancing, we have not asked for any money from the government, either federal or provincial.”

He also noted that “at no time has the company found itself in financial difficulty in Quebec,” before adding: “We're well capitalized, so we continue to work every day on the site, we continue to do what we've always done, we continue to hire. So confidence here is strong.”

An over-ambitious company?

After a 20-minute speech to representatives of the electric vehicle industry, the Northvolt boss took part in a discussion with Karim Zaghib, a professor in chemical and materials engineering at Concordia University and one of the event's organizers.

Zaghib asked Cerruti whether Northvolt “had been too ambitious” and whether “the company had grown too fast.”

“Inflationary pressure” and “the way the industry is perceived in recent times” would have contributed to liquidity problems, Cerruti said.

“I believe we could have integrated certain key competencies into the company earlier,” but “that's what the strategic review will determine,” he added.

“But it's an industry that's extremely, extremely young in its development and industrialization. So the talent pool, it's not huge. We had to go and find talent in Asia to set up our operations in Sweden,” explained Cerruti.

He also suggested that the company may have embarked on too many different activities at once.

“For example, we've announced that we're going to be doing asset disposals, so, was it necessary to get into these sectors?” asked Cerruti.

He didn't refer directly to cathode activities, but recently the company sold its site in Borlänge, Sweden, where it was to build a factory for cathode materials, the positive terminal of a battery.

“Everything we've experienced in Sweden over the last few months and I'd say over the last year are lessons we're going to bring here that will be extremely valuable,” said Cerruti.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Oct. 28, 2024.