Northvolt, a Swedish battery maker, has filed for bankruptcy.
The company received millions from Quebec taxpayers and was promised billions from the Liberals. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau referred to the company’s Canadian activity as a “win–win–win.”
Based on photos and artist renderings found online, the company didn’t build much on its site southeast of Montreal.
Ford said on Wednesday it would cut around 14% of its European workforce, blaming significant losses in recent years compounded by weak demand for electric vehicles, a lack of government support for the shift to EVs, and rising competition.
The U.S. company is the latest automaker after Nissan, Stellantis and GM to cut costs as the industry struggles with growing competition from Chinese rivals in Europe, waning demand in China, and the challenges of shifting to EVs that remain too expensive for most consumers to buy.
h/t DS
Whirl with me back in time all the way to September 2023, when the federal and Quebec governments announced that they would be partnering with Swedish battery maker Northvolt to plunge headlong into the bright green future. Canada and Quebec would be laying out about $2.7 billion in capital, and more in downstream subsidies, to facilitate the construction of a vast, hypermodern battery plant in the province’s hinterland to help meet the world’s unlimited appetite for electric vehicles, creating thousands of jobs and contributing to global environmental health. “It’s a win-win-win — for workers, for communities, and for the environment,” trumpeted the prime minister. What could go wrong?
Europe’s battery strategy is disintegrating, a prime exhibit of hubris and inflated rhetoric.
Its flagship Northvolt gigafactory in northern Sweden has run out of money and is talking solemnly to creditors. The Swedish press reports that it may seek bankruptcy protection within days.
More than half of the EU’s big battery projects face delay or cancellation. Europe still relies almost entirely on China, Korea and Japan for cathode and anode material, electrolytes and polyolefin separators, the real value in the lithium-ion supply chain.
Kevin Mulligan’s electric car coasted into the middle of a junction, his brakes failing to engage. He feared not only for his own life, but those of his passengers.
After several frantic seconds, the system finally kicked in, bringing the car to a halt. Mercifully, no other vehicles had been around at the time. But for Mulligan it was the final straw – driving the car was no longer a risk worth taking.
“It was a lucky escape,” he says.
The dream of a $25,000 electric vehicle for U.S. drivers is in trouble.
Elon Musk has abandoned it. President-elect Donald Trump is unlikely to help. And the current economics of the U.S. auto industry don’t support it.
The key problem: America doesn’t really sell cheap new cars anymore.
Why would any automaker offer an EV—with all of that costly technology—at a price point that’s half of what the average new vehicle goes for these days?
“I think having a regular $25,000 model is pointless,” Musk said a few weeks ago. “It would be silly.”
An Ottawa man feels it’s his right to charge his car overnight at his apartment building since electricity is included in his rent, but his landlord disagrees.
Joel Mac Neil says he has been charging his electric vehicle (EV) at his apartment building, the Park West, with no issues for three years, until now.
“I should be allowed to do this and I don’t have to hide,” Joel Mac Neil said. “I have every right to do this and charge here.”
What does Donald Trump’s resounding win in the recent U.S. election mean for Canada? Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to have been much thought about the answer to this question in Ottawa, because the vast majority of our political and pundit class expected his opponent to be victorious. Suddenly they’re all having to process this unwelcome intrusion of reality into their narrow mental picture.
Well, what does it mean?
California’s electric vehicle mandates, which go into effect next year, are “impossible” to meet and will result in reduced choices on dealer lots.
“I have not seen a forecast by anyone,” Jack Hollis, chief operating officer of Toyota Motor North America, said on a Friday roundtable discussion, “government or private, anywhere that has told us that that number is achievable. At this point, it looks impossible.”
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson revealed that Canada has only installed 6% of the public EV charging ports required to meet its 2035 electric vehicle (EV) mandate, despite $1.2 billion in subsidies spent so far.
Blacklock’s Reporter says with nearly 447,000 charging ports estimated as necessary, only 28,800 are currently in place.
I have long predicted that the EV charger subsidy program would be the next Liberal Party scandal.
Everyone got out … this time.
#WATCH: As a major fire breaks out at a recycling Lithium Battery plant triggering massive explosions leading to mandatory evacuations
Watch as numerous fire departments rush to the scene of a major fire at a lithium battery recycling plant in… pic.twitter.com/ia9K9PDH0d
— Coach Climate of X (@coachclimateofx) October 31, 2024
Range-challenged electric vehicles could face further sales disincentives with a proposal from Britain’s top engineers that battery sizes be reduced by one third. In a just-published report on the supply of critical materials for Net Zero projects, the U.K.-based National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC) points to an obvious fact – there isn’t anything like the amount of raw materials available to transition to Net Zero and most of the extraction processes required are an ecological disaster. The report sets out in terrifying black and white what is coming down the future political rationing track. The lack of resources to replace cheap and plentiful hydrocarbons is also noted in a new McKinsey report, which states that critical minerals face a supply shortage “as demand soars for raw materials to fuel [the] clean energy drive”. Current mineral supply could be as low as 10% of projected 2050 requirements, McKinsey suggests.
The CEO of Ford drives a Chinese electric vehicle and does not plan on exchanging it for an American-made car anytime soon.
Ford CEO Jim Farley spoke about the company’s EV competition last week and admitted to enjoying a Chinese-made electric vehicle — so much so that he had one flown from Shanghai to
Gee the future was so bright … Ford drops EV plans, adds Super Duty truck production to Ontario plant
Meanwhile Quebec may be saying Bye Bye to its E-Battery investment in Northvolt … ‘We are not afraid of Goldman Sachs,’ Legault says of Northvolt demand
On paper, Canada officially boasts more than 32,000 public charging ports for electric vehicles, but on the web, EV drivers say the true number is far smaller because so many stations are out of service.
“This has to be the worst station around. It’s constantly broken,” the driver of a 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EUV who goes by “Adam” said on Oct. 24 on a website called Plug Share about the Trenton, Ont., ONroute charging station just off Highway 401.
In the past six years, the federal government alone has spent or committed to spend over $50 billion on electric vehicle (EV) production and sales. Provincial governments (mostly Ontario and Quebec) have committed another $20 billion-plus.
That’s not just for ultra-expensive EV battery plants, but also subsidies to EV buyers, plus money for EV infrastructure, such as charging stations and home chargers.
