Scania in its home market in Sweden has announced that together with Northvolt it has unveiled a jointly developed battery cell for heavy electric vehicles.
Scania says that in validation tests, the lithium-ion cell has demonstrated an outstanding life resulting in the capacity to power trucks for 1.5 million kilometre, which it says is the equivalent to the truck’s whole lifetime.
According to the company the cells are produced with fossil-free electricity in northern Sweden, and a as a consequence the cell’s carbon footprint is approximately one-third that of a comparative industry reference.
In 2017, Scania and Northvolt joined forces to develop and commercialise a ‘world-leading’ battery cell for heavy commercial vehicles. The partnership and its close collaboration have now come to fruition as the cell is being produced at Northvolt’s Ett gigafactory in northern Sweden.
In addition, later this year, Scania says it 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.
Peter Carlsson, CEO and co-founder of Northvolt, said that at the outset of the 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,” Carlsson said.
Scania CEO Christian Levin said that this 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,” said Levin
“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,” he added.
As part of Scania’s commitment to establishing a supply of sustainable cells, Northvolt Ett says it is powered by 100 per cent 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, it claims 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,” said Christian Levin.
