SUBSCRIBE, LIKE & SHARE for a Fully Charged future! To enable the electric vehicle market to continue to grow, the production of batteries needs to accelerate to meet the demand. Robert was delighted to speak to Peter Carlsson, CEO of Northvolt, to find out how this company that only began in 2017 are transforming the way batteries are made. Northvolt's mission is to both create the world's greenest battery and then also to be able to mass produce this and establish one of Europe's largest battery factories. Building batteries isn't easy and Peter explains how looking at the location and availability of energy led them to Sweden and why reducing the carbon footprint of the battery manufacturing process is as important as making the batteries cost effective. What Northvolt are doing in terms of battery production is groundbreaking and we can't wait to be able to visit their factory for a future episode! Find out more: northvolt.com/ Make sure you are subscribed then enter 'The Great EV Giveaway' for your chance to win an EV for a year and lots of other fantastic prizes fullycharged.show/EV-Giveaway/ Fully Charged is 100% independent thanks to KZread Memberships and Patreons. Without you this channel wouldn’t be possible! If you’d like to help support the Fully Charged channel and its mission: Become a Patreon: www.patreon.com/FullyChargedShow Become a KZread member: use JOIN button above Subscribe to Fully Charged & the Fully Charged PLUS channels Buy the Fully Charged Guide to Electric Vehicles & Clean Energy : buff.ly/2GybGt0 Browse the Fully Charged store: shop.fullycharged.show/ Visit our LIVE exhibitions in the UK, USA & Europe: FullyCharged.Show/events Subscribe for episode alerts and the Fully Charged newsletter: fullycharged.show/zap-sign-up/ Visit: FullyCharged.Show Find us on Twitter: twitter.com/fullychargedshw Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/fullychargedshow

@actionkey8042

3 жыл бұрын

this logo is better than the previous one

@watcher24601

3 жыл бұрын

Instant like for not being about another car or having a 5 minute intro. This is what FC content should be, everyone else does the car stuff.

@williamclark6466

3 жыл бұрын

I enjoyed learning about Northvolt's approach to where and how to recycle and manufacture battery cells for transportation and grid balancing. This is such very important work. Congratulations and thanks to them.

@brentgreeff1115

3 жыл бұрын

Batteries that last 10 years... - its nothing - If the battery plant runs on nuclear - then we are talking, - but solar, wind & geo are a joke.

@diegomatter69

3 жыл бұрын

@@brentgreeff1115 My house is running fine on solar. What's your gripe with solar?

Welcome back to Europe Peter, I wish you success in your mission.

Shoutout to Skellefteå 😁😁 live in that city. Was super exited when them choosed our city 😁😁😁 GO NORTHVOLT 😁😁😁

Velcome to Sweden!🇸🇪👍

@Pablo-tw7tt

3 жыл бұрын

Great country and nice people.

Sounds good. Go Northvolt!

Re Robin saying 6% increase in battery density a year over 10 years that is 60% increase. Due to 'compounding' it is more like 79%.

Great interview. I wish Peter the best luck in this project. So important for the future of the planet.

Having watched every episode of Fully Charged I have now finally bought a 2014 Nissan Leaf and ordered Givenergy battery storage, solar panels and a Zappy car charger. I have not quite stopped burning stuff but will burn a bit less stuff. Thanks Mr Llewelyn.

@mathevideos9909

3 жыл бұрын

Wow. Quite the commitment. Hat's off to you!

Watching the time-lapse of Northvolt's battery facility construction in a heavilysnow covered landscape, it makes a complete mockery of British Rails 'wrong kind of snow/leaves on the lines'. Looking forward to Fully Charged eventually being able to visit Northvolt in person.

It’s a shame I can only upvote this esipode once! Fantastically insightful. Thanks so much.

A fascinating insight to the technology and its benefits.

I've been waiting for this interview. One of my favorite KZread channels (supports the channel by being a patreon) makes an interesting interview with Peter Carlsson at Northvolt. The company that is a leader in Europe, if not the world. Their largest production facility is being built in my hometown, Skellefteå! Thanks Robert!

@tawermeister99

3 жыл бұрын

Wow good for you.

Excellent interview and Bobby let him talk!

@Mr.Monta77

2 жыл бұрын

And doesnt he love to talk 😅

@b6s4shelter

2 жыл бұрын

@@Mr.Monta77 dang it bobby! let the man talk!

As both a huge fan of Bobby and a british native employee of Northvolt in Skellefteå this video is brilliant. Great interview, encourage anyone interested in joining the northvolt journey to apply. Hope to see you back in the north of Sweden someday soon Bobby.

So lovely to see recycling in the mix from the start - well done Northvolt! Well done, Fully Charged! If you have been, thank you for reading! LOL

One of the most fascinating and important videos from FC in a long time...

Fantastic, this is the kind of investment and advancement I hope to see rolled out en mass over the coming years. Very interesting and excited to see how these types of projects progress

Great video and very reassuring to know this stuff is going on! Excellent work! 👍

Awesome company!

Great program ,keep up the good work Robert

Quality infomercial. Great facilities, thoroughly enjoyed!

Excellent interview thanks folks - the only thing that lets it down is the quality of Robert’s audio - lots of room reverb, made more obvious by the fact that Peter’s audio quality was so good!

Awesome! Great interview

fascinating stuff

Will Northvolt cooperate with Advanced Metallurgical Group on Europe's first Lithium Hydroxide factory?

@imrez3927

3 жыл бұрын

Would be a good idea. Also, when is Northvolt going public?

Very interesting interview, so hope you get Peter back on the channel soon!

Thank you!

Great report, very interesting journey. Thanks to you both...large volume battery manufacturing

Great interview. Very cool time lapse from Doubter's Hill at the end.

Cool interview. Thanks for having him on

Mr. Carlson is smart person with good sense of humor.

@briananthony4044

3 жыл бұрын

And he is not Asperger's.

Very informative, thank you.

Interesting and hopeful.

What a great factory 👍🏻

brilliant

Unsure what is wrong with Roberts mic sounds like the one in front of him isn't functioning. Like the mic is somewhere else in the room. Love to see in future Robert get there for a tour once the factory is in full operation. Fantastic.

The Swedish dialect is strong in this one 😉 All jokes aside a very interesting video

@rosen9425

3 жыл бұрын

I knew it would come up 😂

Great episode. Still, as the title says, I wanted to go inside Northvolt.

30:02 compounding... 6% growth for 10 years is 79%

@TheJAMF

3 жыл бұрын

Indeed. Just grab the calculator people and enter 1.06 to the power of (enter number of years). 1.06^10 = 1.790

@aljudy01

3 жыл бұрын

Robert, I knew you would get nailed for that one. And you fully deserve it.

@gaycha6589

3 жыл бұрын

That the growth rate is significant was the broader point for mere mortals.

@SkepticalCaveman

3 жыл бұрын

Not only that, but if your battery is more energy dense, you can make it smaller and lighter and still get increased range.

You mentioned awareness of changing in a battery life and use, what is critical is making the public aware of these changes Once this happens there will be a greater interesting move to a less carbon future.

2.5% of Sweden's electricity output will be this factory? That's mad

@envispojke

2 жыл бұрын

As he also mentioned, the state-owned mining company LKAB is building test plants with a new technology for making steel without carbon and fossil fuels. They predict that it can lower Swedens total emissions by 10% and Finlands by 7%. However they'll need a whole lot of electricity for this. More than 10% of Swedens current usage to be precise! We will need a whole lot more wind turbines it seems..

Great interview. Very impressive. You really should have Peter's name in the title or at least the discription.

I work quite closely with Corvus energy through my line of work, on the hybrid ferry on the Isle of Wight, we had battery telemetry installed they call theirs “lighthouse” it’s amazing how much useful data can be clawed together to make sure we’re running things right!

Just wow!

Northern Scandinavia is fantastic!

One thing they have going for them, is this is a growing market, and competitive cells are going to be production constrained for a while.

Smart move. I wonder when they go public.

@imrez3927

3 жыл бұрын

Me too.

So will Robert be spending New Year's Eve up in the Swedish Arctic Circle? Just waiting for that first battery.

👍😎

Well, it feels like a race to the southpole considering that VW is running with Northvolt now and also deep in QuantumScape for solid state battery which want to build a german plant for the VW supply chain. And that shall become available in 2025 with a twice as high density and faster charging speed at lower costs per kWh. That would have a huge impact.

Lucky to have visited this plant NorthVolt Ett

I sit here watching what new things the world is doing around me. I would like to be younger again to be a part of this, so exciting. Here in the US we are so concerned about our feelings instead of participating in this technology . Well that is what the media tells us anyway. So busy with politics. What a waste. Oh well, I will do what I can. Thanks Fully Charged, great show.

Robert is such a great host. He can be both fun and childish as we knew him back in the old days with a scrap heap challenge, and like this interview, where he is dead serious, very interested in the topic, show he knows so much about it and ask great questions. I know Fully Charged is a team effort, but a front figure like Robert is awesome.

@tawermeister99

3 жыл бұрын

I disagree. Robert isn’t a very good host. I find it hard to accept this push for electric powered vehicles, it feels like government is forcing me to make this choice, if not now then eventually and this isn’t a choice most of the country can afford to make. Robert is part of that process for me. He always seems to glide over the high cost of buying a new electric car and if you decide to buy used then your taking on a used electric car that won’t last a long time (batteries will need to be replaced soon). It all cost so much money.

@kasperbernhardderuginsky113

3 жыл бұрын

@@tawermeister99 I’m sorry that you feel that way, you really need to watch more Fully Charged episodes then. Robert is a fantastic presenter and ambassador of the electric community, he constantly talks about the importance of electric cars being more affordable, and does indeed challenge the industry on this very important point. The fact that you personally ‘find it hard’ that the industry is changing towards battery electric vehicles, has more to do with yourself than Robert and the Fully Charged show. Please remember that no politicians, governments or manufacturers are forced to go electric - if combustion engines could be engineered in a way that made them have zero emissions they would be a part of the future, the fact is that they can’t and therefore manufacturers make the switch to a technology that can. If you want to know more on the subject, I can only recommend to watch the Fully Charged Show on KZread and listen to their outstanding podcast as well, you will be amazed what the future brings and what is already in use :-)

@timmurphy5541

3 жыл бұрын

@@tawermeister99 The reality of climate change is what is forcing us to make this choice. Governments are just trying to soften the blow by fixing things earlier. You and I might not have the money now but lots of people do and they are the spearhead. We should praise them.

@user-jt1jv8vl9r

3 жыл бұрын

@@timmurphy5541 Why is it always climate change we talk about and rarely air quality? My primary concern today is the exhaust fumes my 2yr old breathes when we walk into town. This is the immediate problem that we need to solve. CO2 levels are not harming me today and are a future concern.

@HansMilling

3 жыл бұрын

@@tawermeister99 You are rigt that they still too expensive. But they will get cheaper than petrol/gas cars in 5 years or so, even the purchase price. When the first flat panel TV's came out, they were very expensive. But as more and more people bought them and they were produced in billions, the prices has dropped to nothing. You can buy a cheap 60" TV for & 500 or so today. The same will happen with the electric cars.

there are rumors that northvolt is talking to the Portuguese government for the creation of a battery factory in Portugal.

Awesome 👍🏻

, a very interesting interview of Peter Carlsson, CEO of Northvolt. Looking forward to the Fully Show coming to Australia in October 2022 in Sydney. What is venue you holding it, Olympic Park at Homebush.

Just watched Munro Live Quantum Scape then great to see North Volt 👍🌎🙏👋👋👋thank you great to see so much progress. Thank you keep up the good work

Has that pair of shoes always been in Robert's background ? it reminds me of the show 'People like us'. Also good luck to northvolt, lets hope they can lower electric vehicle prices without compromising battery life.

@davidhumphries3614

3 жыл бұрын

If I remember correctly, he made them himself in an earlier career.

@benjaminford9932

3 жыл бұрын

@@davidhumphries3614 That is correct.

@rosen9425

3 жыл бұрын

Batteries are not the reason for expensive cars. It's a general price hike. New-old technology hype.

I want to invest in Northvolt!

Because the used battery has a remaining use is there a buy back on your old battery when installing new batteries?

Great video... @29:45... you mentioned 6% growth over 10 years being 60%... it's actually more like 79% assuming annual compounding... just use a normal financial calculator ...

The pride of Sweden is Innovation and more start-up companies are there like Northvolt. Next time you should take interviews with companies like Enerpoly and Altris, who are even developing new technology in the battery field in Sweden. They are developing alternate technology to lithium-ion batteries

can anyone tell me what video conferencing solution is being used for this interview? It looks like a very interesting solution

Like it or lump it we in Europe are a year or two behind China and South Korea on battery scale up and battery manufacturing. I always thought when Dyson said it was making a Car to just leave it and concentrate on battery production and recycling down to a fine art would have been such a better move. What happened they spent hundreds of millions to cancel the Car in the end. I do believe a breakthrough will happen and battery tech will jump. Can we have one of these factories in Scotland we run 110% renewable at times but very little storage outside Hydro to flatten the demand. A smelter completely hydro at Fort William was for sale 😉

Are these gigafactories all backed by the same money/people? BritishVolt, ItalVolt, and now NorthVolt? There's this guy Lars Carlstrom who seems to pop up in connection with them all at some stage?

Robert! As Victor Meldrew would say “I don’t believe it!” You didn’t finish with your closing line, “If you have been thanks for listening.”

Thanks for shining some light on how polluting and energy intensive making batteries is, it's usually glossed over and made to look like a clean and green business. Also, it would be nice to see companies repurpose existing factory sites rather than clearing more land for these huge factories.

@peterlittlejohn8933

3 жыл бұрын

I agree there is a lot of energy used to make batteries, (or anything) but overall this is still more efficient than other manufacturing methods. Also you are assuming that an existing factory site is suitable for this business. As Tesla found at their Fremont factory, there are a lot of constraints with existing layout and for any future expansion.

very interesting video! Do you have any plans to cover Cornish Lithium?

@grahamstevenson1740

3 жыл бұрын

Lithium in Cornwall ? Do tell.

@deathruddlesdeathruddles5438

3 жыл бұрын

@@grahamstevenson1740 It's quite interesting, going back to the old tin/copper mining days they discovered springs loaded with lithium salts. The plan is to dig trial bore holes in these same locations and look into the viability of refining the lithium compounds from the dissolved salts.

@keithware5314

3 жыл бұрын

@@deathruddlesdeathruddles5438 yes I have seen bits on this but very little information seems available.

@deathruddlesdeathruddles5438

3 жыл бұрын

@@keithware5314 I've seen their promotional videos. I think it would make a great onsite fully charged vid!

@keithware5314

3 жыл бұрын

@@deathruddlesdeathruddles5438 Yes that would be a good idea. Also a mention of the battery giga factory to be built in Northumberland.

To make steel carbon free (as they claim they are doing) will need 2x the energy needed in Sweden today... So to go green you go 3x energy consumtion... sounds "tricky"

@JasonCunliffe

3 жыл бұрын

That's WHY need to always have the Long & Wide view in planning & infrastructure design decisions. Nuclear & next-gen nuclear gives you that durable energy density to do all sorts of intense electro-chemicall & heat-dependant processes & proton beam medicines etc. About 12 years ago I spoke with a representative of engineering for a big Chinese Photovoltaic company. Trade Expo & Conference in Montpelier. She spoke excellent english & french. I asked her about more efficient PV chemistry & very thin film :: plasma printable future PV technology. And how that relates to Thorium Molten Salt Reactor projects in China, because they had just been announced in press and discussed at Thorium Energy conferences. She was very responsive, on the ball & clearly informed and engaged about the strategy and business choreography. She said: "Yes Of course (forwards)!!! But, right now we have factories, processes and know how in place at work. But PV panels are little known, little used. Most people do not have them in livrs, on their roofs, towns, etc. We are signing contracts and selling product and LEARNING all the time. Each country & culture has its challenges. The current relatively crude crystalline PV panels are not the most efficient. We KNOW that if course. They use LOTS of electricity to make. But it's a pretty simple production line once it is up and running. All the aluminum associated with mounting support structures and all across industry required lots of Electric Energy on demand 24/7 But IF you have that electricity, then you can do all of this, and boostrap to the next stage, to next technology. We have to go through the present to get to the future! This prrsent stage will take maybe 25 years. By then we will know more, the paradigm will have changed enough to make it clear which combination of infrasrructure &;technology we need to use and improve. By then we will likely have many optimisations but also the challenge of new large scale electrical engineering demands. Electric Cars, metalurgy, electrochemistry, welding/manufacturing, offline and portable energy storage vs online. She said we will need all of it. Right now the PV companies are just using what is simple (cheap) easy to put out into the world. In 25:years we will replace much of that with better tech & systems :; smarter systems. Including next gen nuclear, offline storage and local systems as well as network energy plans. Hi speed Railways included. See the videos on Chinese hi speed rail construction. Also recommend reading anything by Vaclav Smil

I hope in the future (or past future) Robert will interview Kryton

6% annual growth in energy density, when compounded annually over 10 years, provides an increase of 79%

Yesterday on the news they talked about the difficulties getting the 10 000 workers needed to this (northern part of Sweden doesn't have so much unemployment .....but a half nice problem.....

@poxer1

3 жыл бұрын

What kind of workers are they looking for? Only engineerers?

@JanLarssonfred

3 жыл бұрын

@@poxer1 I don't know, but i guess then need both engineers and ordinary workers

@philipkorteknie4816

3 жыл бұрын

@@poxer1 with so many people you’re probably looking at every kind of job needed to run such an operation. Engineers, managers but also janitors, cooks and probably a lot of jobs i cant even think of

I am curious how much money this gigafactory got from EU as subsidy?!

Hello, So at 16:50...what we really need is a return of the tamagochi toy, but for your battery..🤨 Cordialement,

@JasonCunliffe

3 жыл бұрын

Great description And as an educational toy/simulator/engine / model for the future of all of this. Build up user-interface, mockups and presentations using SideFX Houdini.

Please do one on the OLA electric. They are creating the world's biggest electric 2 wheeler factory in India. They also recently released their first model.

Welcome to Sweden So Welcome are Realy Great Newa for those live Up North get work are future in industry Will be are Up North Future work is in way Build 🙏👏👍

I am beginning to like videos of this format over the car reviews, very informative. Car reviews have just become of introductory in nature and less of functionally critical in nature, I guess auto channels do better job.

Very interesting - thank you. I have just bought my first EV and I have not come across any definitive information on how best to maintain the battery for maximum life! Some suggest regular discharge/recharge cycles. Some say charge to 80% each time, some say it doesn't matter... so could that question please be answered by a manufacturer such as Northvolt. It was mentioned to keep plugging in, but to what state of charge? 100% all the time, or 80%? Good on them to work recycling into the process.

@GintarasSakalauskas

3 жыл бұрын

100 only if you have a long trip that needs it. For daily use 60-80%. Keeping the battery in 20-80 range should be pretty good.

@bogganalseryd2324

2 жыл бұрын

Charge to maximum 85% to prevent tendrils forming

Do you remember when a 256K disk drive weighed approximately 5 lbs and was about 14 inches in diameter? That could (maybe) represent the capacity of battery storage in the future.

@grahamstevenson1740

3 жыл бұрын

@Paul Denney Amazing how data grows to fill the available space.

@TraditionalAnglican

3 жыл бұрын

I used one that was that size but had 1 mByte of storage, & the fixed drive had ~2x that! Battery density will probably double during the next 15 years.

@Tore_Lund

3 жыл бұрын

@Paul Denney A well payed job? They cost £2000 If I remember correctly. Poor ass me only had floppies in my XT!

@phillip1115

3 жыл бұрын

My intent in posting that was to show how technology changes when there is the research funding necessary. I have no doubts that battery storage capacity per unit of size/weight is going to increase greatly over the next years, perhaps exponentially. The weight of lithium batteries per watt hr. has now reached the point where they are successfully powering aircraft and can last for 20 yrs. Big change from lead acid.

@grahamstevenson1740

3 жыл бұрын

@@phillip1115 Talk of 'exponential' improvements in Li-ion battery energy density is daft for this moderately mature technology. There's talk of 500Wh/kg (re 300-350Wh/kg currently) being possible but it's largely down to materials issues. A theoretical upper limit of 600Wh/kg in the 'perfect Li-ion battery' is accepted by most researchers. For example, the aluminium and copper foils which form the electrodes in current production is 10 microns thick. Reducing the thickness would enable higher energy density without increasing losses from electrical resistance hugely but the material handling equipment used in production destroys thinner foils !

Fantastic. The future is bright. We have no excuse about building in the U.K. 😜😜😜

So good see a CEO getting excited about his product....not his profit.

Great review, just a shame Britvolt will take over 3 years to start producing, the UK is terrible at private investment.

Terrific! Too bad I cannot like this twice. This is Fully Charged video that BEV life-cycle cost and environmental impact doubters need to watch...

update on northvolt ?

Shame I missed our on commissioning some of the systems due covid

quality of life is dire that far north LOL - try visiting in November or something - but I'm really happy they've invested in Skellefteå and are so mindful of the environmental challenges this industry poses

@jonn3132

2 жыл бұрын

Quality of life is fantastic in the north. Beautiful nature wherever you go!

@davidlittle7182

Жыл бұрын

@@jonn3132 yes, very enjoyable for 3 months of the year, apart from the mosquitoes

@jonn3132

Жыл бұрын

@@davidlittle7182 Meh. Summer's to hot. The remaining part of the year is good though!

12:55 2 folks walking over a snow covered field, following previous footsteps. 13:04 OK, 2 folks walking over a snow covered . . ROOF? Thinks to self: "Thank God I am not the bloke who has to sweep THAT lot over the edge, so the roof doesn't fall in!"

@briananthony4044

3 жыл бұрын

I was wondering that. I thought there would be a pitch on the roofs to minimise the buildup of snow on them.

Interesting video. Tesla seem to have taken away a lot of the energy intensive process with their new Cells, with dry cathode technology. But it is encouraging to think the people making batteries in Europe are doing it with some thought to making it as clean as possible.

@martingorbush2944

3 жыл бұрын

AFAIK Tesla haven't mastered dry cathode coating yet. It might even not happen for many years in the future.

@grahamstevenson1740

3 жыл бұрын

@@martingorbush2944 Considering the process involved, I'm not surprised that it's difficult.

I hear they might be getting their graphite using a new graphite purification process

It's fantastic the development of EV vehicles and I look forward to buying one, one day. But the Charging infrastructure in the UK is a joke.

This should be titled "interview with..." rather than "inside....factory"

The whole video sound is from the nortvolt mic 🎙, you completely forgot to insert the interviewer mic sound back when he talks. Please do it next time.

@fullychargedshow

3 жыл бұрын

We did… it was just poor mic placement and we slapped Robert’s wrists for trying to produce valuable content in his own.

@mathevideos9909

3 жыл бұрын

@@fullychargedshow an rightly so. I was wandering about Roberts sound all the way.

Maybe Northvolt will be the greenest company in the world.

Wow, building batteries is difficult . Someone should tell Jagdeep Singh of QuantumScape (see Munro's interview) as he is under the impression that manufacturing is the easy part.

@airheart1

3 жыл бұрын

The man specifically said, in relation to the engineering hurdles to find the materials that work in the right metrics of an automotive use.. manufacturing the battery is the easy part.. you honestly think you know better than him? The man has spent something like 10 years reiterating that chemistry and engineering feat.. you think it will take them 10 more years or more to figure out how to manufacture them? We'll see.. but I doubt it.. and thus, his statement will likely turn out to be accurate

So nothvolt is still talking about ovens Tesla as eliminating ovens and the foot print sound like they are still using the old wasteful production I feel I need more information about the cells

I don't understand why they've built the factory with a flat roof,the snow loading must be huge?

@markthomasson5077

3 жыл бұрын

Snow= insulation!

@DomingoDeSantaClara

3 жыл бұрын

@@markthomasson5077 yes it works well as insulation,but I was questioning the weight after heavy snowfalls.

@markthomasson5077

3 жыл бұрын

It is a huge building, so in proportion the snow is not so much. Can you imagine how big a pitched roof would be! Much less to design for flat roof snow loading

@DomingoDeSantaClara

3 жыл бұрын

@@markthomasson5077 being such a massive building is why I pointed out the potential snow load on such a huge area of roof,I'd imagine being that far north they could well measure snowfall in meters. I really don't know how they design roofs in regions like that,but flat seems to be the worst option,although I've no clue what would be a better option.

@aritakalo8011

3 жыл бұрын

That is why one of the jobs of the building maintenance team is to clear the roof of snow, before it packs too deeply to be a danger. It is very common job for building maintenance during winter to send couple worker up to the roof with shovels and snow sledges to clear out the snow.

Why is cycling a battery supposed to be energy intensive? Modern battery manufactures discharge batteries back into the grid normally (even small chinese manufactures that make battery packs out of cells do this nowadays). Am I missing something here?

@seabream

3 жыл бұрын

At a guess, even with discharging into the grid, even with high round-trip efficiency, there's still a substantial energy cost in absolute terms at the scale of the production planned in terms of losses to heat and then the necessary cooling. Granted, the waste heat may be recoverable for other industrial processes on site, but concentrating and transferring that heat also has an energy cost.

Interesting that northvolt factory will still be using wet slurry. Tesla 4680 cells will be dry battery electrode tech which negates the footprint and energy for those massive drying ovens and the time needed for drying.

From NV website: Among Northvolt industrial partners and customers are ABB, BMW Group, Scania, Siemens, Vattenfall, Vestas and the Volkswagen Group

Not to be a downer on a great episode, but it looks like there are two people near the edge of the factory roof with no edge protection or fall restraints!