Scania and Northvolt unveil green battery capable of powering trucks for 1.5 million kilometers
Today, Scania and Northvolt unveiled a jointly developed battery cell for heavy electric vehicles. In validation tests, the lithium-ion cell has demonstrated an outstanding lifetime resulting in the capacity to power trucks for 1.5 million kilometers – equivalent to the truck's whole lifetime. Produced with fossil-free electricity in northern Sweden, the cell’s carbon footprint is approximately one-third that of a comparative industry reference.
In 2017, sustainability frontrunners Scania and Northvolt joined forces to develop and commercialize a world-leading battery cell for heavy commercial vehicles. Now the partnership and its close collaboration have come to fruition as the cell is being produced at Northvolt Ett gigafactory in northern Sweden. In addition, later this year, Scania will inaugurate a new battery factory in Södertälje, Sweden, where battery cells will be assembled into battery packs for the start of production of heavy-duty electric trucks.
Premium requirement met and exceeded
Peter Carlsson, CEO and Co-Founder of Northvolt, comments: “At the outset of this partnership, Northvolt and Scania agreed to an ambitious timeline for the development of a high-performance battery cell which would enable their plans for electrifying heavy transport. To have proceeded through extensive development and validation phases, and now be delivering cells from Northvolt Ett which exceed our initial expectations in terms of performance is a tremendous accomplishment for everyone involved.”
Scania’s CEO Christian Levin says: “Today marks a milestone on the path towards a sustainable transport system. The future of heavy transport is electric, and to enable the shift and to continue delivering on our brand promise towards customers to be premium, Scania needs top-performing battery cells for our electric trucks.”
“As the development of the battery cell started, we targeted high performance, low operating costs and long lifetime. We decided on a requirement for the cell to enable a 1.5 million kilometers long lifetime for a heavy-duty Scania vehicle. The tests show that this requirement can not only be met, but also exceeded,” says Christian Levin.
Low carbon footprint
As part of the company’s commitment to establishing a supply of sustainable cells, Northvolt Ett is powered by 100% fossil-free electricity generated by hydro power and wind power. Due to the fossil-free energy and integration of additional sustainable production features at Northvolt Ett, the estimated carbon footprint of the cell at full serial production is approximately one-third that of a comparative industry reference cell (IVL 2019 lithium-ion NMC 111 cell)*.
“Northvolt’s mission to build the world’s greenest batteries matches Scania’s purpose to drive the shift towards sustainable transport perfectly. I’m truly looking forward to putting the final puzzle pieces together ahead of the take-off of premium electric vehicles later this year,” says Christian Levin.
Cell specifications
• Cell format: Prismatic
• Capacity: 157 Ah
• Nominal voltage: 3.6 V
• Lifetime: 1.5 million kilometers in heavy-duty commercial transportation
*Carbon footprint: Cradle-to-gate climate change impact calculation was prepared in the manner proposed by EU legislation using the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) EF2.0 database, to provide a projection of cell footprints from Northvolt Ett in full serial production.
For further information, please contact:
Erik Bratthall, Corporate Public and Media Relations Manager, Scania
Phone: +46 76 724 45 27
E-mail: erik.bratthall@scania.com
Om Northvolt
Northvolt är en europeisk leverantör av hållbara, högkvalitativa battericeller och system och grundades 2016 för att möjliggöra Europas omställning till en fossilfri framtid. Företaget har på kort tid gjort stora framsteg i uppdraget att leverera världens grönaste litiumjonbatteri med ett minimalt koldioxidavtryck och har nu fler än 4 500 medarbetare, med mer än 110 olika nationaliteter. Northvolt har hittills säkrat kontrakt till ett värde av över 55 miljarder dollar från nyckelkunder som BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volkswagen, Volvo Cars och Polestar, vilket är en del av den plan som bland annat innebär att 50 procent av råmaterialbehoven ska tillgodoses av återvunna batterier senast 2030.
Om Scania
Scania är en världsledande leverantör av transportlösningar. Tillsammans med våra partners och kunder driver vi omställningen till ett hållbart transportsystem. 2022 levererade vi 80 238 lastbilar, 4 994 bussar samt 13 400 industri- och marinmotorer till våra kunder. Nettoomsättningen uppgick till mer än 170 miljarder kronor, varav över 20 procent var tjänsterelaterade. Scania grundades 1891 och är idag verksamt i fler än 100 länder och har nästan 57 000 medarbetare. Forskning och utveckling är huvudsakligen koncentrerad till Sverige. Tillverkning sker i Europa och Latinamerika, med regionala produktcenter i Afrika och Asien. Scania är en del av TRATON GROUP. För mer information besök: www.scania.com.
