It has been confirmed that Northvolt, a key electric vehicle (EV) battery partner of the Volkswagen Group, recently contacted South Korean battery materials, parts, and equipment manufacturers with the utmost secrecy. The company’s battery development team inspected performance of high-nickel cathode materials and equipment for its prismatic batteries which will be used for Volkswagen’s EVs. It will be interesting to see whether the recent meetings between Northvolt and South Korean companies will lead to expanded partnerships in the future.
According to the industry on Monday, it is reported that Northvolt’s developers recently visited South Korean battery materials, parts, and equipment manufacturers one after another and discussed about potential partnerships regarding the company’s battery business. It is reported that the developers who visited South Korea are key personnel who are in charge of the development of the company’s EV batteries.
They visited South Korea and inspected performance of multiple South Korean companies’ cathode materials, battery electrode equipment (cathode plate and anode plate), assembly equipment for finished products, and back-end process equipment (performance inspection on finished products).
One official from the industry said that many personnel from LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI, and SK Innovation moved to Northvolt and that Northvolt inspected products from medium-sized South Korean companies that the personnel used to work with in the past.
Northvolt’s developers visited high-nickel NCM (nickel, cobalt, manganese) cathode material manufacturers. NCM cathode materials are the most used cathode materials for EV batteries. Recently, there has been an increase in number of cases where high-nickel NCM cathode materials with nickel content of at least 80% have been used. At “Power Day”, Volkswagen announced that it would start using prismatic high-end batteries with high-nickel NCM cathode materials for its EVs. While such batteries’ production cost is higher than that of LFP batteries from Chinese companies, they are much excellent in raising energy density.
Although Northvolt is looking to internalize battery materials, it is reported that the company also discussed about receiving high-nickel cathode materials from outside companies.
“South Korean companies’ high-nickel cathode material technology is far more advanced than companies from other countries.” said one official from the battery materials industry. “We explained many different strengths of South Korean high-nickel cathode materials to Northvolt’s development team.”
Northvolt is also looking into receiving prismatic battery manufacturing equipment from South Korean companies. The company plans to place orders for electrode, assembly, and back-end process equipment in the second half this year. It is currently in negotiations with five to six South Korean battery equipment manufacturers for production of its prismatic batteries.
The company is currently involved in private negotiations after selecting a South Korean company that will represent the company in negotiations, and it is reported that the company received pilot machines recently to inspect the machines’ performance. It is reported that the machines include back-end process machine that inspects prismatic batteries’ performance in charge and discharge and degassing machine that takes gas out of batteries.
One official from the battery equipment industry said that Northvolt’s development team came to see the progress and performance of equipment regarding supply battery equipment and that the company showed great interest on South Korea’s battery technologies overall.
Staff Reporter Kim, Jiwoong | jw0316@etnews.com