The Swedish electric battery group Northvolt announced on Wednesday that it had started its "giga-factory" in Sweden. The factory in Skellefteå in northern Sweden assembled its first electric battery cell 'last night'.

It is the first of its kind launched by a European group on the soil of the Old Continent. It is intended to compete with the American Tesla and the Asian producers of lithium-ion batteries for the automotive industry. When it reaches full capacity, the site should produce enough to equip one million electric vehicles each year, with an annual production capacity of 60 gigawatt hours (GWh), according to the Swedish manufacturer. After these first production tests, commercial production should begin "at the beginning of 2022", factory director Fredrik Hedlund told AFP.