Volvo Cars and the crisis-hit battery company Northvolt are now demanding that the Swedish state pay 13 out of the 20 billion kroner their new factory costs.
Volvo Cars wants part of the battery factory it is building together with Northvolt, paid for by Sweden. In total, the companies are demanding SEK 13 billion.
This corresponds to 8.5 billion Danish kroner. The money must cover more than half of what it costs to upgrade the factory in Gothenburg.
– It costs a lot to start up industries like this, and financial support is very important in this phase, says Christian Jebsen, communications manager in the joint company Novo Energy to Dagens Nyheter .
According to Dagens Nyheter, Volvo's new factory already lacks 70 percent of the electricity needed to run the factory.
READ ALSO: Denmark surprises at the top of the new car list
And now the car brand believes that the Swedish state – and thus the taxpayers – must pay the majority of the bill.
In the joint company, Northvolt and Volvo, in addition to the money from the Swedish Energy Agency, have sought government loan guarantees via the so-called Debt Office. It comes out a week after Volvo announced that it is dropping the ceiling on only building electric cars in 2030.
There are, however, several car brands that require state support. Volkswagen has directly threatened to close several factories in Germany if the country does not reintroduce the state subsidy, which disappeared in December last year.
The joint association of European car brands, ACEA, recently had to admit that motorists are not buying electric cars in the quantities that the factories had imagined. Therefore, the chairman imagines that the EU needs to relax the future emission requirements.
If this does not happen, several car brands will be hit by several stalls in the billion range, says the warning from ACEA chairman and Renault Group director Luca de Meo now.
Read more exciting news from and about the world of cars right here
