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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

#71

Post by rich_sasha »

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? Greater determination? State subsidies? It's not like Chinese universities have a great reputation en masse. It's also clearly not IP theft (alone) since they are the leader - who would they steal from?

If it's subsidies, then China must be taking the subsidy money from somewhere. It's not, as I understand, a non-social, cutthroat capitalist country. Retirement age is something like 55. Is Chinese hegemony in battery production effectively subsidised by underpaid peasants? But surely the image of guys in sloping hats rolling rice paddies desperately outdated; I don't expect Chinese farming to be behind European in terms of technology.

So if it's subsidies, then where is the money coming from, that European governments clearly don't have?

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#73

Post by Timwi »

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…

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

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#74

Post by njarboe »

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?

I'm always amazed when I am reminded that there is still a pipeline through Ukraine moving Russian gas to Europe.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#75

Post by xorcist »

benchmarkist wrote: post #12
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…

Profits and subsidies are privatized, losses are socialized. That's how the system is designed to work.

People keep repeating this as if it was true. The Chinese and American battery manufacturers have received enormous subsidies. This factory is mostly financed on the private market, and some bonds from the EU investment bank, but comparably less.

That hasn't helped. Subsidized competitors are hard to compete against.

The German factory have indeed received some government subsidies. But that is not the factory with problems (at least not yet).

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#76

Post by baxtr »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #63
oezi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is going to stop China's rise but China's own failings (mostly demographically). Russia can't even beat a country one third its own size despite petrol dollars and legacy military stock.

Russia does not need to win to still wreak havoc. Their hybrid warfare has created massive social rifts and political instability across all major Western Democracies. Unfortunately you do not need a lot of money to do evil, when the devil's whispers are enough to turn citizens of a nation against each other.

A great lesson in asymmetrical warfare.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#77

Post by metalmangler »

That there is no focus the actual failure, and that is a secondary failure,ongoing. Engineering, production, know what a millwright is? The bros thought they could bluff there way through a parts per billion production line,and just hire people,strut around and go to meetings.Anylise things. Better batteries are made from materials that are known and consistant to parts per billion.The mechanical assembly has to be within microns.Every parameter of temperature and humidity must be known and controlled at every stage. It is a long tradition in some shops, that when the brozecutives show up, they are taken to the maitenence department and allowed to chat with the janitor, but never see the actual shop floor, and never know the difference. Look at boeing to see what happens when the bros think they can optimise, purely engineering descisions, that are already finely tuned. Want to build an engineering company?

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#78

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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?

What if they didn't stubbornly stick to a plan but instead considered all the alternatives and refurbishing a nearly run down nuclear plant wasn't the best option?

> The government commissioned a so-called “stress test” in the summer of 2022 to see whether it would make sense to let the remaining reactors run several months longer to ensure grid stability during the winter of 2022/23. It found that a limited runtime extension could make sense for supporting electricity production. Chancellor Olaf Scholz ultimately decided that the three remaining nuclear plants in the country receive a runtime extension of about three months, until 15 April 2023, to act as a backup during the crisis. The government later ruled out any further extensions and plant operators said that letting the plants run longer would not be possible from a technical point of view, even if this was desired politically.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/qa-why-germany-phasing-...

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#79

Post by ashildr »

jansan wrote: post #67
blitzar wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shut down fully working nuclear power plants in the middle of an energy supply crisis Yes it is a stupid decision, but your timeline is out a little - 2011 is when they decided to shut down the power plants, the energy crisis was 2022. The amount of work that doesnt get done when you are 2/3/4 years from end of life makes reversing the decision on the day of shutdown not as easy on the ground as it is from an armch…

In a crisis you sometimes have to go the non-easy way. They built terminals for fracking gas in record time, so I am sure they could have found a way to keep those nuclear power plants running for a few more years.

“I am sure” of many things I have no idea about, too. It’s called Dunning Kruger effect.

Re: Northvolt goes from Europe battery promise to crisis

#80

Post by MrHamburger »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #37
throwaway4711 wrote: post #34

NV bought manufacturing equipment for $2B from China, now left in the lurch during bring-up, supplier dragging their heels, sending 3rd rate support engineers. Of course, China doesn't want to support a competitor in Europe... Classic rogue state hybrid warfare, just as cut cables in baltic, also by Chinese. Plausible deniability all the way. https://www.newsweek.com/baltic-cable-sabotage-nato-1988689

This is what I’m seeing in social media elsewhere - reports of difficulty getting good support from Chinese suppliers.

Support is expensive getting good support from China is generally not possible, because it destroys margins. That is making me very curious about aftermarket of Chinese cars, because they might be cheapish today, but incredibly expensive when you will need to fix them.
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