网文来自网友原文翻译投稿，所有言论皆不代表本站立场 | 本文文字/图片来自网络，侵删 | 点击页眉也可刷新 | 注册送50花瓣，每日登录送5花瓣 | 本文内容仅供娱乐，不作任何严肃之用途
Northvolt宣告破产：千亿投资打水漂，欧洲电池独立的梦想破灭，彰显中国企业在电池行业强大的统治力欧洲的电池野心在Northvolt的破产海啸中被重创，而其冲击波可能将远超过一家电池初创企业倒闭所带来的影响。上周Northvolt申请破产后，作为第二大股东的高盛也紧接着宣布，将其持有的Northvolt股份价值减记至零。高盛在2019年首次投资Northvolt，直到半年前，这一华尔街大行都一直坚定认为Northvolt的投资回报十分乐观。据外界估计，高盛的私募股权基金持有Northvolt至少8.96亿美元的股份，占比19%。另一个难兄难弟则是德国汽车制造巨头大众汽车，据称其也已经大幅减记其持有的21%的Northvolt股份。除了高盛和大众这些重量级投资者外，西门子、瑞典养老基金AMF都是Northvolt的股东之一。股东们在过去陆续为Northvolt输送了150亿美元的资金，帮助其成为欧洲规模最大的初创企业。但截至上周四，Northvolt账上只剩下3000万现金，和58亿美元的债务。作为债主之一的欧盟委员会，其发言人在周一表示，其为欧洲投资银行向Northvolt提供的多笔贷款提供了担保。目前该机构的风险敞口已经达到3.13亿美元，这部分亏损十分可能将由欧盟预算承担，而欧盟预算又主要由欧盟各国财政部出资提供资金。无数的私募经理、政府官员和欧盟纳税人都很纳闷，在他们看来，一个月前Northvolt还是欧洲最有希望打破亚洲电池垄断的希望，但一夕之间电池没了，钱也没了。他们能想到的唯一迹象，或许只有宝马的那一次撤单。
Northvolt由Peter Carlsson和前特斯拉高管Paolo Cerruti于2016年创立，其宗旨是利用北欧地区丰富而廉价的绿色能源，在电池领域挑战宁德时代和比亚迪等电池领先公司。随后，俄乌冲突、欧洲绿色转型等一系列事情又推动该公司成为欧美新能源的一张名片。在其发展早期，Northvolt获得了欧洲一些最大工业集团的商业和金融支持。除大众汽车的股权投资外，宝马、Scania等汽车集团都向Northvolt下达了规模极大的订单。到2022年，Northvolt的客户订单累积量已经达到550亿美元。这也让最初计划只在瑞典小镇谢莱夫特奥建立一家工厂的Northvolt野心膨胀，第二家、第三家工厂迅速被提上日程，德国、加拿大、波兰等国家都成为该公司的业务发展地，除了电池制造之外，Northvolt还做起储能设施、阴极生产和回收等生意。遗憾的是，在2021年开始生产电池的谢莱夫特奥的工厂，无法担当起Northvolt这一大摊子中的核心角色，反而成为刺破Northvolt资本泡沫的第一把刀。2023年，谢莱夫特奥工厂的总产量只有其理论产能的0.05%，让一众期待Northvolt惊艳表现的欧洲人士大跌眼镜。2024年6月，大客户宝马终于认栽，以延误和质量不佳为由终止了一份价值数十亿美元的电池合同，而这一事件也被市场视为Northvolt的一大挫折。但当时没人想到，这个挫折会直接绊倒Northvolt。
Northvolt首席执行官Carlsson上周反省称，他应该早点停止公司的扩张，以确保核心引擎（谢莱夫特奥工厂）可以按计划运转。越来越多的人则发现谢莱夫特奥工厂多年以来竟一直在上演一出“草台班子”大戏。一名熟悉谢莱夫特奥的人士表示，那个瑞典小镇十分偏远，难以吸引有识之士在那边安家，而当地的人才也不愿跳槽去Northvolt工作。还有人则补充称，谢莱夫特奥纬度极高，夏天天不黑，冬天天不亮，导致很多外地工人生物钟完全紊乱。该地之难熬，最后甚至让有些瑞典人都不愿意去上班。更加离谱的是，Northvolt是一家很“绿”的公司，不仅表现在它是一家制造绿色电池的公司，还表现在它的政治正确。该工厂引进了来自100多个不同国家的数千名新工人，但工人们之间几乎没有交流。另据一份调查报告发现，该工厂能完成工作的只有100多个来自中国和韩国的外包工人。其中，中国的外包工人主要来自一家无锡的电池上游设备生产商。而为了赶工，Northvolt要求中方前往瑞典工厂完成设备测试，痛苦的是，当地工厂却没有一个人有生产经验。据一名前员工透露，Northvolt基础太弱了，一切都要中国人手把手地教，机器也是中国人给的，厂房也是中国人建的。这种脱节导致谢莱夫特奥上下沟通不灵，这也让公司管理成为一个极大的问题。但这些细节都被隐藏在谢莱夫特奥工厂里。
Northvolt的现任和前任员工还透露了更多的内幕。谢莱夫特奥工厂还存在着安全标准差、浪费资金和普遍性管理不善等问题。大概一年前，谢莱夫特奥工厂曾发生过一次爆炸，导致了一名Northvolt工人死亡。随后，瑞典环境检察官以涉嫌严重过失杀人罪对Northvolt提起调查。而那次事故也让Northvolt停止了工厂生产，导致其对最大客户Scania的电池供应出现延误。去年12月，Northvolt再次出现事故，一名建筑工人在扩建工厂时，被倒下的叉架砸中身亡。而在今年年初，Northvolt工厂又发生了三起不明原因的工人死亡事件。这对一家追求高环境标准，高道德标准的电池生产企业来说，无疑是十分灾难的事情。出自特斯拉的电池工程师团队可能低估了在欧洲白手起家的难度，华尔街和欧洲政客大概也低估了现实与梦想之间的距离。Northvolt的这一出悲惨戏剧早在很久之前就已经有所伏笔。
前特斯拉高管、Lyten公司的首席电池技术官Celina Mikolajczak指出，电池的制造难度极大，其必须在无尘环境中的自动装配线上生产，使用高度加工的金属和化学品进行制造。轻微的杂质就可能毁掉成批的电池，使公司一下子损失数百万美元。她补充称，电池工厂的建设成本高达数十亿美元，而掌握所需技术诀窍的工程师却供不应求。人们如果想要在电池行业中立足，他们就必须带来新的东西，而不是追赶着前人的脚步。股东们似乎对Northvolt的管理层已经无话可说，还有人则将矛头对准大众汽车和高盛，声称是这两大股东在很多问题上意见不一致才加剧了Northvolt的困境。总之，每个人都希望找到一个确切的理由来为自己打水漂的投资买单。据Northvolt临时董事长Tom Johnstone称，破产程序将帮助该公司重新获得资金，并加以重组以继续电池制造业务。但每个人心里都明白，Northvolt不再是过去的那个欧洲之光了。I predicted the failure of Northvolt from the start when it was five people from Tesla who had no background in battery cell manufacturing. Battery cell manufacturing is very difficult, it is something VW Group looked into doing for itself and concluded that they would not be able to catch up with the quality and cost of existing companies. Tesla itself has struggled mightily in their own effort to achieve this.As for supporting European legacy automakers as they try to transition to EVs, the cold reality is that this is a disruption and a second disruption of autonomous driving is about to arrive, and as a rule legacy companies will die, all of them, when facing disruptions.我从一开始就预言了Northvolt的失败，因为当时它只有来自特斯拉的五个人，而且他们都没有电池制造的背景。电池制造非常困难，大众集团曾想自己做，但最后认为他们无法在质量和成本上赶上现有的公司。特斯拉本身也为实现这一目标付出了巨大的努力。
至于支持欧洲传统汽车制造商向电动汽车转型，残酷的现实是这是一种颠覆，自动驾驶的第二次颠覆即将到来。按照惯例，传统公司在面临颠覆时全部都会倒闭。
There are factory shutdowns an d staff layoffs throughout Europe, including the UK, in automobile, engineering and manufacturing industries. The scale of decline is incredible. The UK, for example, is following the lead from the US (same in Australia) that the service sector becomes the dominant industry. Either there are no jobs in those sectors and/or there will not be sufficient number of STEM graduates joining and maintaining them. Everything is made in China, and yet the West blames China for their own problems.在包括英国在内的整个欧洲，其汽车、工程和制造业都出现了工厂停工和裁员的现象。衰退的规模令人难以置信，例如英国正在效仿美国（澳大利亚也一样），让服务业成为主导产业。这些行业要么缺乏工作机会，要么没有足够数量的STEM毕业生（译注：科学（Science），技术（Technology），工程（Engineering），数学（Mathematics）四门学科英文首字母的缩写）加入并维持这些行业。一切都在中国制造，而西方却把自己的问题归咎于中国。
Unfortunately this company is relying on old battery technology where the latest battery technology is in solid state batteries. It’s too bad the government jumped the gun in handing out money blindingly without expertise consultation.不幸的是这家公司依赖的是旧的电池技术，而最新的电池技术是固态电池。政府在没有征求专业意见的情况下就盲目发放资金，这实在是太糟糕了。
The EU is more concerned with wasting their money in a futile war against Russia and cutting off the cheap energy supply, so no surprise this and other ventures will not succeed. The EU will turn into a group of developing countries in the next 15-20 years if they don't change their policy very soon.欧盟更关心的是把钱浪费在徒劳无益的对俄战争以及切断廉价能源的供应上，所以毫不奇怪，这个项目和其他项目都不会成功。如果不尽快改变政策，欧盟将在未来15-20年内变成一个发展中国家集团。
Blame it on me as I will never buy a greenwashed EV which has higher carbon footprint than ICE V. Among my vehicles I still have my 1989 Vanagon camper with only 70k miles. Yet the holier-than-thou would jump into the Tesla just to go around the blocks to get a cup of Starbucks sweet drink because they think their EV is net-zero.要怪就怪我吧，因为我永远不会买绿色环保的电动汽车，因为它的碳排放量比燃油车还高。在我拥有的汽车中，我还有一辆1989年生产的/仅行驶了7万英里的Vanagon野营车。然而，那些自以为是的人会跳上特斯拉，只为绕过街区去买一杯星巴克甜饮料，因为他们认为自己的电动汽车是净零排放的。
What is wronging partnering with a Chines company capable to compete in the the sub $50/kWh market. As I understand Tesla has decided that LFP technology has a place in their market and are installing a manufacturing line in their Nevada plant produced by CATL own subcontractors to produce LFP batteries that qualify for the US sourced battery. Chinese industrials are not shy to do deals that allow them to get a foothold wherever. It is just the price without loosing ownership. Copy Tesla's LFP example: Tesla paid for the line upfront and their personal will end-up running it. Follow the leader.....与一家有能力在50美元/千瓦时以下市场竞争的中国公司合作有什么错？据我所知，特斯拉已决定在其市场上采用磷酸铁锂电池技术，并正在其内华达工厂安装一条由宁德时代自己的分包商生产的生产线以生产符合美国电池采购标准的磷酸铁锂电池。中国工业界并不羞于做让他们可以在任何地方立足的交易。这只和价格有关，而不会失去所有权。我们可以仿效特斯拉的磷酸铁锂电池例子：特斯拉预付了生产线的费用，而中国电池生产商将最终运营这条生产线。你们应该跟随领导者.....
This is just the harbinger of what reindustrialization will be like in the West especially the US. Like many industries, China is so far ahead of the game including technology and supply chains, that any potential competitor could not cost effectively compete with Chinese products. The West may impose whatever outlandish tariffs to stamp out so called "overcapacity" but China will easily sell their economically priced products to the emerging Global South who will happily reap the benefits. Meanwhile the West with their outrageously priced goods protected by tariffs will be limited to their domestic markets shut out by markets dominated by Chinese products. RIP Northvolt!这只是西方尤其是美国再工业化的前兆。与许多行业一样，中国在技术和供应链等方面遥遥领先，任何潜在的竞争者都无法以低成本与中国产品竞争。虽然西方国家可能会征收各种离谱的关税以消除所谓的“产能过剩”，但中国会很容易地将其价格经济的产品卖给新兴的全球南方国家，这些国家会很高兴地从中获益。与此同时，西方国家的产品价格将高得离谱，因为它们将受到关税的保护，所以只能局限于将中国产品拒之门外的国内市场。Northvolt，安息吧！
I don't think Northvolt failure is because it did not receive enough support. You cannot create a supply chain out of nothing.我不认为Northvolt的失败是因为没有得到足够的支持，你不可能凭空创建一条供应链。
But the CEO has repeatedly stressed that they can beat China's supply chain as long as they get enough investment.The reason for his resignation is that he can no longer get investment.这位首席执行官一再强调只要获得足够的投资，他们就能打败中国的供应链。
他辞职的原因是无法再获得投资。
Billions upon billions given and loaned, incentives, subsidies and support from both the government and major automakers and technology companies. Failed because ‘no support’ lmao. You literally cannot get more support than that.政府、大型汽车制造商和技术公司提供了数十亿美元的奖励、补贴和支持。项目失败是因为“缺乏支持”，笑死我了，因为你真的不可能得到比这更多的支持了。
Nobody forced Northvolt to hire people from China who had never worked in a battery factory (such as CATL or BYD).Northvolt fantasized about getting the technology of battery production from an equipment supplier of CATL, which was impossible.Have you ever seen anyone learn cooking from the kitchen knife manufacturer?没有人强迫Northvolt从中国雇佣从未在电池厂（如宁德时代或比亚迪）工作过的人。
Northvolt幻想从宁德时代的设备供应商那里获得生产电池的技术，但这是不可能的。
你见过有人向菜刀制造商学习做菜的吗？
The biggest mistake was to have one monopolist company being the only hope. They failed of course, just like Tesla will eventually. What China does differently is that they support a whole industry more indirectly and let the companies within it compete and find the rightful winner. Sort of state driven market capitalism. Europe has completely misunderstood this concept and idea imo.最大的错误就是让一家垄断公司成为唯一的希望。他们当然失败了，就像特斯拉最终也会失败一样。中国的不同之处在于他们更间接地支持整个行业，让行业内的公司参与竞争并找到真正的赢家，这算是国家驱动的市场资本主义。在我看来，欧洲完全误解了这一理念和想法。
Northvolt fail because they try to complete in an industry that they have no chance to complete in...Second most of the machine needed to make the battery were impoprted from China which need Chinese to operate them...Having to paid Swedish wage to Swede who can not operate Chinese machine is not going to workout...The only way I see Northvolt working out is if its is sold to a Chinese company that know how to make batteries, bring in a lot Chinese staff to train Swedes how to make batteries using Chinese machine and know how...Otherwise Northvolt will fail..Northvolt的失败是因为他们试图在一个他们根本没有机会的行业中达到目标。
其次，制造电池所需的大部分设备都是从中国进口的，需要中国人来操作......向不会操作中国设备的瑞典人支付瑞典的工资是行不通的......我认为Northvolt唯一的出路是将其出售给一家知道如何制造电池的中国公司，引进大量的中国员工来培训瑞典人如何使用中国的设备和技术来制造电池......否则Northvolt将会完蛋。
China identified batteries as a strategically vital industry and so has devoted significant resources (into R&D and productive capacity) to establish itself as the number 1 producer. Unfortunately we (in Europe) are not in a position to compete. To be honest, i don't think the US are in a position to compete either. But there are still plenty of industries where we retain a comparative advantage中国将电池视为具有战略意义的重要产业，因此他们投入了大量的资源（用于研发和生产能力）并确立了其第一大生产商的地位。遗憾的是我们（欧洲）没有能力与之竞争。老实说，我认为美国也没有能力与之竞争，但在很多其他的行业，我们仍然保持着比较优势。
lesson to learn: don't have too much goal to achieve specially if you don't have experience. have 1 goal, meet the goal, then add another goal.要吸取的教训：不要设定太多目标，尤其是如果你没有经验的话。你可以设定一个目标，先达到该目标，然后再添加另一个目标。
The EU supported Northvolt but they lack the technology to mass produce the cells. While CATL and BYD are churning groundbreaking battery technologies, Northvolt cannot keep up the pace at all. Northvolt battery tech uses rare earths while BYD and CATL are now mass producing sodium-ion batteries without anymore using rare earths.虽然欧盟支持Northvolt，但他们缺乏大规模生产电池的技术。宁德时代和比亚迪正在研发突破性的电池技术，而Northvolt完全跟不上步伐。Northvolt的电池技术使用稀土，而比亚迪和宁德时代目前正在大规模生产不再使用稀土的钠离子电池。
Actually the expensive element that CATL and BYD avoided using is Nickel and Cobalt, not rare earth. That is the main reason why LFP type battery is so dominant currently其实宁德时代和比亚迪避免使用的昂贵元素是镍和钴而不是稀土，这也是目前磷酸铁锂电池占主导地位的主要原因。
I was working there, and there weren’t many Swedes in our team of eight—none, in fact. There also wasn’t much work to do. Many days, we were at max stock, waiting for the next process to consume some material so we could produce something.Some days, we hardly did anything, and on other days, we ran just one machine. That machine is supposed to be operated by two people, but we often had 4–5 people on floor.They keep saying it will get busier and we will run 4 machines all the time and only 1.5 person per machine.But that never happened they laid off almost everyone.我当时在那里工作，我们的八人团队里没有几个瑞典人，事实上一个都没有。要做的工作也不多，很多时候我们的库存都是最高的，等待着下一道工序消耗掉一些材料，这样我们就能生产出一些东西。
有些时候我们几乎什么都不做，有些时候我们只运行一台设备。那台设备应该由两个人操作，但我们的车间里经常有四五个人。
他们一直在说以后会越来越忙，我们会一直运行4台设备，而每台设备只需要1.5个人，
但这从来没有发生过，他们几乎裁掉了所有人。
There were two objectives: To enrich a group of corrupt politicians by transferring monies from pension funds into their pockets, and to comply with EU’s green rules. Both objectives were reached, so it was a great success.（该项目）有两个目的：通过将养老基金中的资金转移到一群腐败政客的腰包，让他们中饱私囊，同时遵守欧盟的绿色规则。这两个目的都达到了，所以这个项目非常成功。
In fact, it is recommended by Northvolt Japanese technicians, because most battery factories in the world use the same equipment.Apart from China, no other country produces such equipment.Northvolt can't spend another 20 years researching and manufacturing equipment by themselves.他们别无选择。
事实上，这也是Northvolt的日本技术人员的建议，因为世界上大多数电池工厂都使用相同的设备。
除了中国，没有其他国家生产这种设备。
Northvolt不可能再花20年时间自行研究和制造这种设备。
Why would anyone believe it was possible? Because westerners usually think China can't develop new things, they can only copy, so if China could do it then certainly their European "betters" could do better.Underestimating your opponent is the shortest path to defeat. And the collective West has a story of grossly underestimating emerging nations, and China in particular, when it comes to technological advancement.BTW, battery cell manufacturing isn't that hard. What is excruciatingly hard is bringing the costs down. Northvolt would certainly be able to build batteries for $250 per kWh, but at that price not only their batteries wouldn't compete with China's ones, any customer they got would also be unable to compete with any manufacturer purchasing Chinese batteries.为什么会有人相信这是可能的呢？因为西方人通常认为中国人无法开发新事物，他们只能模仿，所以如果中国能做到，那么他们欧洲的“高手”肯定能做得更好。
低估对手是走向失败的捷径。在技术进步方面，西方集体严重低估了新兴国家，尤其是中国。
顺便说一句，制造电池并不难，真正困难的是降低成本。Northvolt当然能以250美元/千瓦时的价格制造电池，但以这样的价格，他们的电池不仅无法与中国的电池竞争，而且他们的所有客户也无法与任何购买了中国电池的汽车制造商竞争。
This legitimises Chinas support of the EV industry and shows how shows how Tariffs at such a high level were a bad idea. Now they have to ditch the tariffs or support their green energy business in a similar fashion to the Chinese hi lighting their recent hypocrisy with regard to tariffs …. The simple fact is, China as a nation, invested in the future, Europe, The UK and USA apart from Tesla, did not… Investment brings reward, complacency brings failure…这使得中国对电动汽车行业的支持合法化，同时也说明了如此高额的关税是多么糟糕。现在，他们必须放弃关税，或者以类似于中国的方式支持他们的绿色能源业务以彰显他们最近在关税问题上的虚伪....一个简单的事实是中国作为一个国家对未来进行了投资，而除了特斯拉之外，欧洲、英国和美国都没有这样做......投资带来了回报，自满带来了失败......
您可以通过以下方式访问樱落网：
1. 网址：www.skyfall.ink
2. 樱落网APP（推荐，只有5M，不占空间，速度极快，也不需要任何权限，试过才知道有多方便）
安装地址（公众号可点击底部阅读原文）：点击这里
iphone安装：设置-找到下载的描述文件安装即可
感谢各位亲的相伴与支持，由于个别文章的用词和地图使用不规范，全部文章会在审核整理之后陆续上架。为避免误点收费文，所有1月17日之前注册的用户均已获赠1000花瓣，敬请查收。每日登陆送5花瓣 | 联系方式：QQ-1399710240 ，有任何问题请发邮件或者加QQ。
关键字：Northvolt宣告破产,Northvolt,Northvolt破产 专题：欧洲责任编辑：管理员
来源：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvGaC3NHrcU
