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Batteries produced by the plant will be “specifically developed” so they can be used in fully-electric cars from Volvo and Polestar.
The gigafactory in Gothenburg will dovetail with a planned research and development center.
The R&D center is due to start operations this year, with the battery production facility scheduled to be up and running in 2025.

A Volvo XC40 Recharge car on display at the 38th Thailand International Motor Expo 2021.
Peerapon Boonyakiat /SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images

Volvo Cars and Northvolt said Friday they would build a battery manufacturing plant in Gothenburg, Sweden, with construction set to begin in 2023.
According to the companies, the facility is set to “have a potential annual cell production capacity of up to 50 gigawatt hours.” This would equate to supplying enough batteries for around 500,000 cars every year, they said.

The batteries produced by the plant will be “specifically developed” so they can be used in fully-electric cars from Volvo and Polestar, which is joint owned by Volvo Cars and China’s Geely Holding Group.
The so-called gigafactory in Gothenburg will dovetail with a planned research and development center that was announced in December 2021 as part of an investment of roughly 30 billion Swedish krona, or $3.29 billion.
Gigafactories are facilities that produce batteries for electric vehicles on a large scale. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been widely credited as coining the term.
“The battery cell production joint venture between Northvolt and Volvo Cars will be a significant player in European battery cell production and will represent one of the largest cell production units in Europe,” the companies said in statements published on their websites on Friday.
“Volvo Cars and Northvolt have appointed former Tesla executive Adrian Clarke to lead the production company,” they added.

Plans to develop a battery plant were announced in December, but a specific location was not confirmed at the time. The R&D center is due to start operations this year, with the battery production facility scheduled to be up and running in 2025.

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In March 2021, Volvo Cars said it planned to become a “fully electric car company” by the year 2030. Northvolt is a Stockholm-headquartered company which was founded in 2016. It has attracted investment from Goldman Sachs and Volkswagen, among others, and is aiming for 150 GWh of cell output per year by 2030.
During a question and answer session on Friday, Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson and Javier Varela, Volvo Cars’ head of engineering and operations, were asked if there would be an expansion of the joint venture to parts of the world such as Asia and America.Varela emphasized it was a step by step process. “Today it’s clear that we are focusing on our European needs and [it’s] to be discussed in the future how we will secure capacity in other areas,” he said.For his part, Carlsson said: “Obviously, from day one we have had a big European focus and our infrastructure is here. But it’s … also pretty clear that the electrification platforms are really becoming global and the rollout of product portfolios … [is] becoming global.”
“However, batteries are heavy to ship and they’re also, to some extent, a bit complicated in terms of logistics since there … [are] certain hazardous goods requirements when you ship batteries.”This meant that there would be a regionalization of the supply chain, he said. “That’s the reality, also for us, that we need to continue exploring.”Friday’s announcement comes at the end of a week in which the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said 878,432 new battery electric passenger cars were registered in the EU last year, compared to 538,734 in 2020.
For new passenger cars, the market share for battery electric vehicles stood at 9.1% in 2021. Despite registrations for new gasoline and diesel vehicles falling, the ACEA said “conventional fuel types still dominated EU car sales in terms of market share in 2021, accounting for 59.6% of all new registrations.” More

CNBC Travel

“We badly need to … get back to normal life,” said Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Stefanos Kales.
Cemile Bingol | DigitalVision Vectors | Getty Images

It’s time to let the young, healthy and “anyone who wants to move on” from the pandemic do so, said Dr. Stefanos Kales, a professor at Harvard Medical School.
In a paper posted on LinkedIn last month, Kales said that for the majority of children and adults, “Covid-19 is not a serious threat, only a nuisance that impedes schooling, work and travel.”

“Once Omicron peaks, subsequent variants are likely to be even more mild,” he said. “We badly need to allow the general public, particularly the young, to get back to normal life.”
He said he favors focusing Covid-19 efforts on “the vulnerable” rather than the population as a whole.
“Many reasoned, outspoken and honest scientists have been making the point that Covid-19 is moving rapidly from a ‘pandemic’ … to an ‘endemic’ respiratory infection comparable to the common cold and flu,” he said.
In light of this, it’s “past due” to rethink some Covid protocols, he said.

Less testing and fewer restrictions

With the exception of older people, those with health problems and the unvaccinated, Kales said, for most people, Covid-19 is “much more of a logistical nightmare than a health threat.”

It’s therefore time to stop — or dramatically reduce — testing healthy people who show no Covid symptoms, he said, calling this strategy “doomed to failure.”
“As expressed by another physician I recently heard on the radio, it is like trying to stop a snowstorm by catching each and every snowflake, rather than keeping the roads open by plowing,” he said.

Widespread testing — for travel and work — makes it harder for sick and vulnerable people to get tested, said Kales.
“We would never screen well people for the cold or flu virus. Let’s stop testing healthy kids in schools and universities,” he said. “At this point, the teachers, faculty and staff have had the opportunity to be vaccinated and thus, their risk is minimal as well.”
Those with Covid-19 symptoms are a different matter, he said. Regardless of vaccination status, they need to be tested, diagnosed and given effective medications, he said, adding that sick people — “whether it’s Covid or a cold” — should stay home for five days.

The risk perception here is way off.

Dr. Stefanos Kales
Harvard Medical School

Kales said many current protocols are from medical professionals who focus exclusively on infectious diseases, rather than public health.
“Public health is a balance,” he said.

‘Overestimating’ danger of Covid

Kales said he’s a strong advocate for vaccinations, despite their inability to prevent infections caused by the omicron variant.
“The vaccines … they’re excellent,” he said. “They’ve saved many lives, and they’ve prevented many hospitalizations and much illness.”
Vaccinated people, however, are still fearful of being infected, said Kales.

Dr. Stefanos Kales cited the National Football League’s decision to stop testing asymptomatic players because “they were sidelining too many healthy” players. But, he said, he supports surveillance testing for those who work in nursing homes and with other immunocompromised people.
Jorge Lemus | NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

He said vaccinated people are overestimating the danger that Covid poses to them. He recalled younger vaccinated people telling him they aren’t comfortable dining inside restaurants yet.  “I just think that the risk perception here is way off,” he said.
Still, some say there may be reason to continue exercising caution. Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, posted on Twitter today that the notion that Covid “will evolve to a less virulent strain may exemplify wishful thinking.”

Not there yet

Kales’ opinions differ from many in the medical community, which as a group has been among the staunchest proponents of pandemic protocols.
One such person is Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, who said this week that the United States may be heading into a new phase of the pandemic. But, he cautioned, it isn’t there yet.
“I have said, and continue to say, that currently we are still at war with the virus,” he said Monday on “The Daily,” a podcast published by The New York Times. “We have 2,300 deaths a day, 156,000 hospitalizations, and we have the danger of new variants occurring.”

Though he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said another variant could arise that eludes current immunity. “I hope that’s not the case,” he said. “I don’t think it will be, but we have to be prepared.”
Shawn Thew-Pool | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Kales said he believes the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 has been overestimated. He pointed to an “Incidental Covid-19 Report” published this week by the Massachusetts Department of Health, which showed 49.5% of the state’s Covid-19 patients were hospitalized due to “primary” Covid infections, while 50.5% patients tested positive after being hospitalized for other reasons.
In response, Kales said: “With all due respect, I do think it’s time to move on.”

Loosening travel curbs

Kales said he doesn’t believe testing and vaccination requirements for travel are effective public health measures. He said countries are moving away from these types of restrictions.
In the past week, Puerto Rico and Aruba announced they are dropping testing requirements for some vaccinated travelers.
Airlines and other travel industry groups on Wednesday asked the Biden administration to drop testing requirements for inbound vaccinated travelers to the United States. A letter to the White House that was seen by CNBC cited the pervasiveness of Covid-19 in the United States, increased immunity and vaccination rates, and the availability of new medical treatments.

Dr. Stefanos Kales said N95 and other high-grade medical masks work, but there is “essentially universal consensus that cloth masks don’t.”
Liudmila Chernetska | iStock | Getty Images

Professor Cyrille Cohen, head of the immunotherapy laboratory at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, agreed that vaccination-based travel restrictions are making “less and less sense.”
But, he said, since unvaccinated people are more at risk of severe disease, countries may want to keep measures that help prevent hospitalizations, particularly if their medical systems are strained.  
Cohen, who said he does not believe that Covid-19 is endemic yet, said he supports testing requirements for international travel “until the situation stabilizes.”
“We know that variants are still developing around the world,” he said. “We do believe that the omicron may help transitioning from [a] pandemic state to an endemic state. But until that happens, I think we should continue with testing before getting on the plane.” More

Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday reiterated his long-term confidence in Facebook parent Meta Platforms.
However, investors who want to take advantage of the stock’s post-earnings plunge should be patient, the “Mad Money” host said.
“Let them ruin the stock one more time. That will be your chance,” Cramer said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday reiterated his long-term confidence in Facebook parent Meta Platforms, but said investors who want to take advantage of the stock’s post-earnings plunge should be patient.
“I say Meta-Facebook will be a buy because eventually the sellers do get exhausted… and this will be no different from the last three times I said to buy and everyone laughed,” said the “Mad Money” host, whose charitable trust has long owned shares of the social media giant.

“We may not be there yet, but we’re awful close. Let them ruin the stock one more time. That will be your chance,” Cramer continued.
Shares of Meta fell 26.4% Thursday, causing the company to lose more than $237 billion in market value. Thursday’s steep decline came as Wall Street processed Meta’s weaker-than-expected revenue growth in the next quarter, and the tech firm’s warning about the sales impact of Apple’s recent privacy changes.
Cramer said Meta’s quarterly results and guidance were definitely disappointing.
“Put it all together and you can justify selling the stock, maybe down as much as 15%,” Cramer acknowledged. But a 26% decline is overdone, he argued, “because Facebook has actual earnings. Right now you’re paying just 18 times for those actual earnings, well below the average stock in the [S&P 500].”
Plus, Cramer said the Mark Zuckerberg-led company has faced plenty of challenges in the past and seen its stock fall as investors grew concerned about them. He noted he was buying the stock when it traded in the teens per share and low $20s, as people thought the company was behind the curve on mobile.

So far, though, Meta has been able to overcome those obstacles and see its stock move higher, Cramer said, and he’s expecting it to happen again.
“I’m not telling you to buy Meta-Facebook [on Friday]. Not yet,” Cramer said. “When you have an emotional market … the selling will not be like normal selling. It gets angry. It’s chaotic. It’s extra irrational. It won’t necessarily be over in a day,” he added.
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Disclosure: Cramer’s charitable trust owns shares of Meta.

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Qualcomm views the so-called metaverse as much more than just the next frontier for social media, CEO Cristiano Amon told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday.
“You’re always going to have the big social network, consumer play … but industrial is big,” he said.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Thursday that the chipmaker views the so-called metaverse as much more than just the next frontier for social media.
“The metaverse is going to develop as a number of different opportunities,” Amon said in an interview on “Mad Money,” appearing one day after the company’s posted strong first-quarter quarter results.

“You’re always going to have the big social network, consumer play. You’re going to have a big one for gaming, but industrial is big,” contended Amon. He said that underscores the importance of Qualcomm’s partnership with Microsoft, which uses Qualcomm’s chips in its mixed reality smart glasses.
Discussion of the metaverse has surged in recent months, thanks in large part to social media giant Facebook changing its name to Meta Platforms and announcing a major investments to build out interactive, immersive virtual worlds. That put the metaverse concept, which had been around in science-fiction circles for decades, firmly on Wall Street’s radar.
Amon stressed that its potential goes beyond recreational and social uses. The reason for that is because cloud computing adoption is stretching across the enterprise landscape, he said.
“With the cloud economy we have right now, with everything connected to the cloud, we have digital twins of everything. You can have a digital twin of a car, for example,” Amon said.
“When the car shows up at the dealership and somebody is going to look under the hood, they can put a virtual reality, augmented reality device, and it will tell you from the digital twin in the cloud, where to fix it, where’s the problem,” he said, adding that it can be used for worker training, too.

Amon’s comments paint a picture of the metaverse that looks similar to the vision of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. In a “Mad Money” interview in November, Huang told Cramer he believes companies are investing in the metaverse because it can be used to run simulations that translate into real-world savings.
“By doing that, we could decrease the amount of waste, and that’s the reason why the economics are so good for companies,” Huang said. “They’re willing to invest a small amount of money to buy into this artificial intelligence capability but what they save is hopefully hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.”
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It’s that time again! “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer rings the lightning round bell, which means he’s giving his answers to callers’ stock questions at rapid speed.

Rattler Midstream: “That group is red hot. The master limited partners. This thing yields 8%. I think it’s money good. I think it’s great. … Buy.”
Nextdoor: “It’s a great advertising vehicle, but it was a SPAC. It was a SPAC and therefore, it’s no good. I mean, honest to God. If it’s a SPAC, it’s no good. That’s how the market looks at it. I think it’s good. I would buy more right here.”

Rocket Companies: “People told me, don’t like the ownership structure. Don’t like the way it enriches some people, including a family I really like. I have stayed away from it for a really long time. I don’t want to own a mortgage company in a time when the Fed is raising rates.”
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Disclaimer

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CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday he views the post-earnings decline in Estee Lauder shares as a buying opportunity.
The “Mad Money” host downplayed any concerns about a slowdown in the cosmetics giant’s business in China.
“When China ends its lockdowns, I think we’ll see the demand for these products soar,” Cramer said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday he views the post-earnings decline in Estee Lauder shares as a buying opportunity, downplaying concerns about the company’s sales in its Asia/Pacific region.
“When China ends its lockdowns, I think we’ll see the demand for these products soar,” the “Mad Money” host said. “That’s why the stock of [Estee Lauder] is a buy, not a sell.”

The cosmetics giant beat Wall Street’s expectations on both the top and bottom lines, posting 11% organic sales growth and 14% revenue growth overall for its fiscal second quarter. While Cramer said he was impressed by the results, Estee Lauder shares sank by 5% in Thursday’s session.
“A lot of it’s because the analysts are now worried that China’s slowing,” Cramer said, calling that concern “absurd.”
Estee Lauder saw organic net sales growth of 5% in its Asia/Pacific region, but Cramer said it’s necessary to interpret those results in the context of strict Covid pandemic restrictions in China.
“What matters is Chinese demand. … Supply is not the issue here,” Cramer said. “What we know is when Chinese consumers were faced with the opportunity to buy Estee Lauder, when the stores were open, that’s exactly what they did.”
Cramer’s charitable trust does not own Estee Lauder at present. On Dec. 16, the trust exited its 100-share position, selling at roughly $365.67 apiece. It had bought shares earlier in the summer, believing Estee Lauder was a solid way to play the pandemic reopening.

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Elizabeth Hurley was speaking to “CNBC Meets” in her role as global ambassador for The Estée Lauder Companies’ Breast Cancer Campaign, ahead of World Cancer Day on Feb. 4.
Both women and men can be diagnosed with breast cancer which has now overtaken lung cancer as the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world.
October this year will mark the 30th anniversary since the late Evelyn H. Lauder co-created the now globally recognized pink ribbon symbol for breast cancer.

Elizabeth Hurley visits SiriusXM Studios.
Slaven Vlasic | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Actress, model, businesswoman and philanthropist, Elizabeth Hurley, told CNBC that the Covid-19 pandemic has been an “incredibly challenging” time for cancer patients.
“I think because of the pandemic, because of the last 18 months, it’s been very hard for some of us to think about any health issues apart from Covid, obviously. We’ve all been worried about getting vaccines, we’ve all been worried about keeping our loved ones safe, some of us have lost people, it’s been a really challenging time for everyone,” Hurley said.

“But it’s been an incredibly challenging time for people who’ve been diagnosed with cancer or for people who are worried about their own health and would like to be checked for cancer-related illnesses. So, if anything, this World Cancer Day this year in 2022 is more vital than it’s ever been.”
Hurley was speaking to “CNBC Meets” in her role as global ambassador for The Estée Lauder Companies’ Breast Cancer Campaign, ahead of World Cancer Day on Feb. 4.
She told CNBC that raising awareness of self-checking your breasts, and breast health in general was crucial. Both women and men can be diagnosed with breast cancer which has now overtaken lung cancer as the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world.
The star of movies and TV shows including “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery,” “Gossip Girl,” “The Royals” and Marvel’s “Runaways” has been helping to raise funds and awareness for the campaign since 1995. She said that the campaign had resonated with her personally after losing her grandmother to breast cancer.

“She found a lump herself, like many women do. She was too scared and too embarrassed to tell her doctor for some time, more than a year, and by that time the cancer had spread, and in spite of a mastectomy, it had spread to her liver and it was too late to save my grandmother,” she said.

“So, part of our messaging has always been ‘early detection saves lives.’ We know that if breast cancer is caught early there’s an extremely strong chance of survival, but the key words are catching it early.”
Hurley said checking your breasts regularly was “absolutely vital”. “Checking them once a month so that you know how your breasts feel, so that if you notice a difference you can go to your doctor and talk to him or her about that and then if there is something wrong it’ll be found early,” she said.
October this year will mark the 30th anniversary since the late Evelyn H. Lauder co-created the now globally recognized pink ribbon symbol for breast cancer and founded the campaign with its mission “to create a breast cancer-free world for all.”
The Breast Cancer Campaign and The Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation have since provided over $108 million toward “global research, education and medical services.”
Lauder also founded the non-profit Breast Cancer Research Foundation in 1993. Hurley said that she had seen vast changes since she had become involved.
“People didn’t talk about breast cancer back then,” she said.
“That landscape has changed unbelievably in the 27 years that I’ve been with the campaign. People now are talking about breast cancer. They’re talking about fundraising, they’re talking about treatments, they’re talking about diagnosis, they’re talking about aftercare if you’ve been diagnosed, how should people be treated, what can we do to help?”

Covid lockdowns

The star, who established her eponymous luxury beachwear label in 2005, also told CNBC that balancing her family, career and charity commitments had been difficult at times.
“I think when I was a younger mother with a younger child the balancing act was a great deal more difficult, as everybody knows who’s got young kids who are still being ferried to and from school and are still having their baths run for them and having their pajamas laid out. You know, that’s a challenge in any woman’s life or any parent’s life,” she said.
“It was a juggling act, but now, you know my son’s 19 and I obviously don’t have to lay his pajamas out for him anymore or run his bath, so you know I’m enjoying much more now a real return to business, to making movies.”

Hurley said that the coronavirus lockdowns had been an interesting experience, and a creative time for her.
“I’ve been very lucky that during lockdown, since the first lockdown, I’ve made three or four movies and a TV pilot and I’ve written my first script, and to me it’s actually become a very creatively productive time,” she said.
“And I really think in some way that even though lockdown was such a terrible time for so many of us, in some ways mentally, it was also quite good for some of us, because it made us step back, get off the treadmill and reconnect with ourselves, with our families, even though we were cooped up and it was so tough.”
She said that she has continued with some of the changes she made during the pandemic.
“I choose not to go out very much now. I choose to see select people in quite safe environments now, in their houses or in my house, and I’m very happy with that. In fact, I’m thrilled with that, and I feel that I’m actually much closer to certain people, and the people that I haven’t seen so much I don’t miss, sorry.”
Asked if she was hopeful that we will see a cancer-free world one day, Hurley told CNBC: “I truly believe, from the breast cancer point of view, that the only thing standing between today, when women are dying of breast cancer and it’s the most diagnosed cancer in the world, and a day where people are no longer dying from breast cancer, the thing standing in the way of that is lack of funding.”
“We need to raise more money, and in the meantime, people need to look after themselves and self-check and go to their doctor if they’re worried,” she said.

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