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Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

reuters.com

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Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#81

Post by oezi »

jansan wrote: post #64
oezi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still do not understand... Renewables? + some batteries + gas peaker as winter backup The nuclear plants weren't fully working anymore but taken into planned shutdown 10 years after the decision was made to shut them down. That people think Nuclear is a power technology where you can just nilly-willy decide to continue running is the real idiocy. Energy prices are now lower than before the run-up to the Russian w…

The decision to fade out nuclear power was made under the assumption of having an alternative reliable energy source (namely Russian gas). If your main assumption suddenly blows up (literally), do you really claim that stubbornly sticking to your original plan is the right way to go?

By the time Putin started his war there were only 3 reactors left. Their run-time were extended for 3 1/2 months which apparently conserved roughly 2% of annual German gas consumption.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomausstieg#Seit_2022:_Diskus...

The reality is that a majority of Germans don't want Nuclear power. Seeing how little other countries in the west are building it seems that sentiment is pretty common.

You are absolutely right, that Russia required us (and many others) to rethink many assumptions. The German answer was to build out LNG terminals and double down on renewables.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#82

Post by abc123abc123 »

ngrilly wrote: post #33
brabel wrote: post #9

Incredibly embarrassing for Europe and Sweden. Even with billions of investments from the big car companies, investors and many millions in subsidies, they simply couldn’t make it work at all. Instead of buying the California startup just to shut it down, should’ve invested most of their money there instead. They are leaving an enormous eyesore in the northern Sweden landscape with thoudands of people unemployed, man…

As far as I know, no executives received “millions of dollars in bonuses”. What is your source? And in Sweden and Europe, people are usually not paid in dollars :)

Since northvolt is private, there is a lot less insight into what goes on there. However, I'm fairly sure that the CEO did sell some of his shares during one or more financing rounds, in order to create a little nest egg for himself.

On top of that I'd imagine that during the 8 years or so, he probably took out at least 200k EUR in salary, if not more, per year. So a few millions of dollars probably went to the CEO.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#83

Post by abc123abc123 »

rich_sasha wrote: post #71

I'm curious how China makes it work. No doubt they also have dedicated, smart and educated people - I guess no massive shortage of that in Europe either. Central government is often considered to be somewhat corrupt and incompetent, so in any case not hugely better than in Europe. I'm sure there's more know-how, but that came from somewhere too. What is the difference then? Willingness to work for lower wages? Greate…

Yep. Europe is socialist, which makes it extremelt difficult to start successful tech-companies. Europes unicorns is far fewer than what are created in the US and China.

As long as europe continues to heavily regulate and tax its citizens in the best socialist tradition, it will continue its decline, to become a tourist playground in a generation or two, for the rest of the world.

I always advice young entrepreneurs to move outside europe to start their companies.

In its current form, europe is dead.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#84

Post by ExoticPearTree »

Timwi wrote: post #73
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly but true. The latest issue is that the EC would rather see the auto industry fail than to change its climate objectives. It looks like it gotten so bad that Germany started speaking up against emissions goals and most likely would try to block any measures. I don't think Arianne is successful as it relies on traditional technology to launch things into space and they can't be competitive with SpaceX. The EU is…

How is AI regulation a laughing stock in the context of emissions reduction?

America innovates, Europe regulates and China copies.

It was a parallel that in the EU we have regulations for things that there are no successful companies in the field and even if some companies will do AI in Europe, they will not be able to compete globally because they are chained by regulations. And with regulations that do not into account the economic realities, like the slow killing of the auto industry with the push for EVs even if very few people actually want them.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#85

Post by ExoticPearTree »

clarionbell wrote: post #61
jddj wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mistral is french

True, and in my opinion a proof that Europe has potential to recover. Unfortunately it remains to be seen if they manage to survive oncoming regulator onslaught. I hope they will.

The way the current EC is set, fat chance of giving up regulating everything they can regulate.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#86

Post by wkat4242 »

rich_sasha wrote: post #71

I'm curious how China makes it work. No doubt they also have dedicated, smart and educated people - I guess no massive shortage of that in Europe either. Central government is often considered to be somewhat corrupt and incompetent, so in any case not hugely better than in Europe. I'm sure there's more know-how, but that came from somewhere too. What is the difference then? Willingness to work for lower wages? Greate…

In China people might retire at 55 but there's no government pensions. People's children are their pension. Social welfare is not very great there.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#87

Post by wkat4242 »

abc123abc123 wrote: post #83
rich_sasha wrote: post #71

I'm curious how China makes it work. No doubt they also have dedicated, smart and educated people - I guess no massive shortage of that in Europe either. Central government is often considered to be somewhat corrupt and incompetent, so in any case not hugely better than in Europe. I'm sure there's more know-how, but that came from somewhere too. What is the difference then? Willingness to work for lower wages? Greate…

Yep. Europe is socialist, which makes it extremelt difficult to start successful tech-companies. Europes unicorns is far fewer than what are created in the US and China. As long as europe continues to heavily regulate and tax its citizens in the best socialist tradition, it will continue its decline, to become a tourist playground in a generation or two, for the rest of the world. I always advice young entrepreneurs…

It's a lot better place to live than the US though. And we don't need as much. Quality of life is not measured in terms of the amount of stuff you can buy. We don't have to be afraid of getting shot at school or being bankrupted because of an illness. We don't have to pay off our student loans for decades. Income equality is much higher (leading to more public safety and fairness). To many of us this matters more than money.

The US has different goals than we do. Europe has never been about maximum profit. Capitalism is a tool to support society, not the end goal.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#88

Post by wkat4242 »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #84
Timwi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is AI regulation a laughing stock in the context of emissions reduction?

America innovates, Europe regulates and China copies. It was a parallel that in the EU we have regulations for things that there are no successful companies in the field and even if some companies will do AI in Europe, they will not be able to compete globally because they are chained by regulations. And with regulations that do not into account the economic realities, like the slow killing of the auto industry with…

As an EU citizen I really applaud the AI regulation. And I work on implementing AI too.

If we look at how the big social media experiment panned out, polarising society through engagement-driven algorithms, it was important to prevent this happening with AI. The same with adtech which caused too much surveillance.

Because it's much harder to put the genie back in the bottle when companies are already heavily relying on it for their business model. We try to steer the industry towards business models that benefit society as well.

AI is nice but it's important to make sure it doesn't undermine society as social media certainly has done. And the regulation is not outrageous. It's mostly common sense.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#89

Post by leviliebvin »

brabel wrote: post #9

Incredibly embarrassing for Europe and Sweden. Even with billions of investments from the big car companies, investors and many millions in subsidies, they simply couldn’t make it work at all. Instead of buying the California startup just to shut it down, should’ve invested most of their money there instead. They are leaving an enormous eyesore in the northern Sweden landscape with thoudands of people unemployed, man…

We have an epidemic of bad leadership. It's everywhere. Governments, research institutions, private and public companies. I don't know the cause of it, but from what I observe from my workplace it's because the heavily bureaucratic processes of both public and private entities requires a certain personality that is basically a politician above all else. And the whole promotion process is a one way valve. Once you go up a rung there's very little you can do to be pushed down the same rung again.

The best managers I had are people who made their career in the US and returned to Europe as senior managers.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#90

Post by wkat4242 »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #41
clarionbell wrote: post #30

Europe is entering a crisis of unprecedented proportions. This isn't just an isolated incident, one bad company, this is a trend. It used to be that subsidies managed to balance out the over-regulation, high labor costs and powerful pressure groups Europe was known for. Now it's no longer the case. There used to be a technological edge European countries (especially in the west) could rely on, which made them more su…

Sadly but true. The latest issue is that the EC would rather see the auto industry fail than to change its climate objectives. It looks like it gotten so bad that Germany started speaking up against emissions goals and most likely would try to block any measures. I don't think Arianne is successful as it relies on traditional technology to launch things into space and they can't be competitive with SpaceX. The EU is…

Those climate objectives are necessary. Soon we will be spending a lot more on disaster mitigation than we would have on some EV subsidies. If anything the transition is not fast enough. I'm living very close to Valencia with its recent flooding disaster, that it didn't happen here was just a matter of chance. That week alone has cost the country more than 10 billion in damage payments and the actual damage is a lot bigger than that. And that's not even considering the hundreds that were killed.

And cars aren't as important here as in the US. I haven't owned or driven one in 7 years.

I agree that ariane isn't doing well but it's really niche anyway.

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