Northvolt - When giga ambitions faced failure of gigantic proportions The most ambitious project of the West to challenge the dragon's dominance in battery manufacturing, turned out to be a damp squib with the company Northvolt filing for bankruptcy protection in the US in Nov'24, followed by in Sweden in Mar'25. A decade of advancements in Li-ion, Na-ion and Li-metal batteries led by Tesla veterans, funded of ~USD15bn, an order book of +USD50bn, and backed by the likes of Volkswagen, BMW, Goldman Sachs and Baillie Gifford, went up in smoke. As several Indian companies are focusing on new energy, it is important to look at the challenges that lie ahead. Some Indian companies like RIL have demonstrated phenomenal execution capabilities even with unrelated diversifications like in telecom and retail in the past. However, the know-how built by Chinese, Japanese and South Korean companies over...