Swedish battery maker Northvolt announced Wednesday that it has produced its first lithium-ion battery cell at its factory in Västerås, meeting its deadline to start production at the plant before the end of 2021.  

Northvolt competes against TeslaIt was the battery-making section. valued at $12 billionIn June, investors stated it is the first European battery that has been completely designed, developed, and assembled.

Northvolt stated that the battery cell was removed from production on Tuesday.

“Of course, this first cell is only the beginning,” Peter Carlsson, CEO and co-founder of Northvolt, said in a statement.

“We look forward to Northvolt Ett increasing its production capacities significantly over the coming years to allow the European transition toward clean energy.”

Northvolt plans to alter this. Currently the vast majority of world’s battery for electric cars are manufactured in Asia and the U.S.

Northvolt, despite being just six years old has already signed contracts worth $30 billion with car companies. BMW, Volkswagen, VolvoPolestar.

Northvolt stated that commercial deliveries would begin in 2022. He also said that the production capacity of Northvolt will grow to 60 gigawatt hours in the next years. This is sufficient to provide batteries for approximately 1,000,000 electric cars. 

To expand its operations, the company raised more than $6.5 billion in capital from several investors.

Northvolt had its largest funding round yet. It was co-led jointly by Goldman Sachs and VW alongside new investors including Swedish pension funds AP1, AP2, AP3, AP4 and Canadian pension provider OMERS. One of the previous investors was Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and investment management firm Baillie Gifford are also investing in the round.