In Skellefteå, the battery plant that was Northvolt's has started again, at the pace of the American firm Lyten. SVT was inside. Ida Hammega, who had worked there since 2021 and left in the bankruptcy, has been back for a week. This is not the old mill with 4,000 people and not a commercial delivery today.

Northvolt went bankrupt in March 2025. SVT writes of 5,000 staff hit, in Skellefteå, Västerås and Stockholm. Lyten's purchase closed in February 2026. Since then the line has been restarting, slowly. Matthias Arleth, head of Lyten Sweden, says they first get one line to hold, then copy it. They are not trying to do everything at once.

A couple of hundred people work there now, SVT writes, against about 4,000 at the peak. Arleth thinks they will be a thousand in a couple of years and 600 in a few months. All of that, he says, depends on demand. That is a company target, not a signed state contract and not a guarantee of jobs.

Norran was in the plant in September: tests, hiring, customer cells expected in the first quarter of 2027. Hurbra, on 18 October, puts the same calendar: limited production now, commercial deliveries early in 2027, not in 2026 as Lyten had hoped at takeover. Technical capacity of about 16 GWh is the building's, not today's volume.

Former Northvolt staff are called first, under Swedish labour law. Not everyone wants to return. Trust, after a bankruptcy, is a question, not a slogan. Ida says they stand on a good base. An employee's feeling is not a production balance sheet.

The plant is running, but short. The line still has to be requalified. Until the 2027 deliveries, Skellefteå has a factory awake, not Northvolt back from the dead.

Image: unknown author, Skelleftea square, public domain, Wikimedia Commons; the town, not the Lyten hall in October 2026.

Sources consulted: The battery factory is starting up again in Skelleftea - SVT; First look inside Lytens restart of Northvolts former factory - Norran.