A new book by award-winning Swedish investigative journalist Gunnar Lindstedt alleges there was a culture of deception, financial mismanagement and regulatory failure at the heart of the bankrupt Swedish battery giant Northvolt.
Released yesterday, The Northvolt Case (Northvoltfallet) reveals that Sweden’s Economic Crime Authority (Ekobrottsmyndigheten) has quietly opened a formal investigation into the company for alleged tax evasion, accounting fraud and even potential fraud by deception (svindleri). These are allegations that, if proven, could implicate not just the company’s leadership but its auditors and board members as well.
Lindstedt’s meticulously researched account, based on over a year of interviews with former executives, board members and c0-founder and former Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson, paints a picture of a company that was technically insolvent by mid-2024 — fully six months before its official bankruptcy filing in November of that year.
This directly contradicts the repeated assurances from Northvolt’s leadership that the company remained on solid financial ground.
In a comment, Carlsson wrote: “Nothing shows that the board or management would not have fulfilled its duties against creditors or waived the requirements of the Companies Act.
“The information that the Swedish Economic Crime Authority has launched an investigation is new to me. ”
The book alleges that press releases and public statements were riddled with half-truths and outright falsehoods, designed to mislead investors, regulators and the public about the true state of the business.
One of the examples cited by Lindstedt is a 2023 statement by Carlsson who claimed that the company had not placed orders it could not afford or pay for.
According to Lindstedt, this was allegedly demonstrably false. Northvolt was already out of cash at the time the statement was made.
Similarly, Harald Mix, the company’s chairman, allegedly falsely declared in a 2023 radio interview that Northvolt had “started large-scale production in Skellefteå”, a claim Lindstedt describes as allegedly “a blatant untruth”.
Carl-Erik Lagercrantz, a board member, made what Lindstedt alleged were “untrue statements” in the 2022 annual report about the company’s vertical integration, despite the fact that Northvolt never manufactured its own cathodes, a core component of its battery production.
The European Commission has announced it will be pumping more cash into electric vehicle battery technology despite losing hundreds of millions on the now-bankrupt Northvolt project. https://t.co/b48ky1FmZG
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) December 4, 2024
At the heart of Northvolt’s unravelling was a bitter power struggle between Carlsson and his co-founding former partner, Paolo Cerruti, an ex-Tesla executive who had grown increasingly alarmed by the company’s direction.
As early as 2022, Cerruti warned that Northvolt’s rapid global expansion, which included ambitious projects in the US, Canada, Poland and Portugal, was unsustainable, particularly when its flagship plant in Skellefteå was still plagued by delays and inefficiencies.
His concerns extended to Carlsson’s personal conduct, including a conflict of interest arising from the CEO’s relationship with Sofia Graflund, Northvolt’s chief legal officer, who also sat on the executive team.
Cerruti argued that Graflund’s dual role compromised her independence and that many of the company’s senior hires lacked the industrial expertise required for large-scale battery manufacturing, instead serving as “yes-men” to Carlsson’s vision.
Cerruti’s warnings were largely ignored although Graflund was eventually forced to resign but Carlsson remained in charge.
The book suggests a culture of deference allowed critical flaws to go unchallenged, ultimately contributing to the company’s collapse.
One of the most explosive revelations in The Northvolt Case is the company’s early and deep dependence on Chinese suppliers, despite its public commitment to European industrial sovereignty.
In 2018, Northvolt selected Wuxi Lead, a Chinese equipment manufacturer, as a key supplier for its Skellefteå plant.
What was not widely known at the time was that Wuxi Lead was partially owned by CATL, China’s dominant battery maker and a direct competitor to Northvolt.
Even more alarmingly, CATL held a seat on Wuxi Lead’s board, giving it potential insight into Northvolt’s operations, a risk Lindstedt describes as a “Trojan horse” that could have enabled industrial espionage or even sabotage.
The decision to rely on Wuxi Lead proved catastrophic.
Northvolt never conducted factory acceptance tests on the Chinese machinery before shipping it to Sweden, a oversight that led to years of operational chaos.
Hundreds of Chinese technicians had to be flown to Skellefteå to fix the equipment and Carlsson later admitted that this had been a “huge mistake”.
By the time of Northvolt’s bankruptcy, nearly €500 million in unpaid invoices to Chinese suppliers remained outstanding, exposing the company’s financial vulnerability to Beijing.
A report by Swedish economic researcher Jonas Grafström has criticised the EU’s industrial policy, citing Northvolt’s collapse as evidence of flawed taxpayer-funded investments. https://t.co/t1NwtBwJEd
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) December 11, 2024
The publication of The Northvolt Case comes at a time when the company’s legal and regulatory troubles are far from over.
Carlsson remains under investigation for alleged workplace safety violations following the 2023 deaths of three employees at the Skellefteå plant.
While two mid-level managers have since been cleared of wrongdoing, Carlsson’s case continues, with prosecutors examining whether negligence or systemic failures contributed to the fatalities.
Meanwhile, the Swedish National Debt Office is scrutinising Northvolt’s €1.2 billion in state-guaranteed loans, with questions mounting over whether the company misrepresented its financial position to secure public funding.
There are also growing concerns about the role played by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which both helped Northvolt raise capital. Lindstedt reveals that Harald Mix, Northvolt’s chairman, co-owns a Tuscan vineyard with Per Hillström of Morgan Stanley, and Sam Bonnier, a member of a prominent Swedish media family.
The revelation raises serious conflict-of-interest concerns, particularly given Morgan Stanley’s involvement in AP Fund investments in Northvolt.
European Commission Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné has said that money lost on Swedish battery developer and manufacturer Northvolt fell within budgetary bounds. https://t.co/pmftNnyZyB
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) July 24, 2025
Northvolt’s rise was fuelled by an unprecedented wave of public funding, with European governments, the European Union and pension funds pouring billions into the company in the name of “green” transition and industrial sovereignty.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) provided a €350 million loan in 2019, backed by the EU’s InnovFin programme, while the Swedish state extended €1.2 billion in state-guaranteed loans through the National Debt Office.
In addition, Northvolt secured hundreds of millions in direct grants from Swedish agencies, including SEK 1.5 billion (€135 million) from the Swedish Energy Agency and SEK 500 million (€45 million) from Business Sweden for its Skellefteå plant.
Folksam, a prominent Swedish mutual insurance company, put almost €80 million into Northvolt.
The company also benefited from EU Innovation Fund grants, although the exact figure remains undisclosed.
Sweden’s AP Pension Funds, which manages the retirement savings of millions of Swedes, invested heavily in Northvolt, with AP1, AP2, AP3, and AP4 collectively injecting SEK 10 billion (€900 million) into the company. These investments were facilitated by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which provided valuation services and helped structure the deals.
Denmark’s biggest pension fund, ATP, invested €308 million.
At the start of 2024, the European Investment Bank injected nearly €1 billion into Northvolt’s gigafactory in northern Sweden.
Germany’s Green ex-minister of economy Robert Habeck gave the German branch a controversial €600 million loan.
Northvolt was the flagship of the European Commission’s “green” battery initiative.
Its collapse has left thousands jobless, investors out of pocket and Europe’s battery ambitions in disarray.
The company never achieved large-scale production of its own batteries, despite its marketing claims.
Much of its output relied on intermediate materials from third parties, directly contradicting its “100 per cent Swedish” branding.
Northvolt also exploited geopolitical tensions to its advantage, at one point threatening to move operations to the US to secure EU subsidies, leveraging then-US president Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act as a bargaining chip.
Costly investments in the now-bankrupt Swedish “green” battery manufacturer Northvolt have drawn mounting criticism, with accusations that some pension funds may have broken the law to funnel money into the company. https://t.co/Qo3hFfPLyM
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) April 16, 2025
