Changing FOAK Geography

Choosing the wrong geography can kill a FOAK, but being forced to choose too early almost certainly will.

Lyten is moving manufacturing from the US to Sweden and Poland, while trying to keep its FOAK in Nevada. Freyr started in Norway, shifted to the US, and eventually walked away from batteries altogether.

In today’s increasingly fragmented world, choosing a location for your FOAK can be central to survival. And too many founders are being pushed to make that choice before the FOAK has proven it can run.

This is not something that founders usually come up with. That push usually comes from the board.

“Let’s take advantage of the IRA!”

“No, let’s get some of the EU scale-up fund!”

“What will you do when the dollar weakens?”

“There is no market for EVs in the US anymore!”

You are not sure if your product will work at scale, and you already asked to change location! And changing location is hard, as every country has different:

• permitting regimes,

• labour markets,

• supplier availability,

• government support.

At the FOAK stage, those assumptions are untested. Once you pick a country, you inherit its constraints — whether or not your process is ready for them.

Founders know - geography is often chosen to satisfy governance, signalling by key investors/customers, or incentive requirements, rather than execution reality.

And reversing that decision is expensive. Not just in capex. In time, credibility, and team fatigue.

The hard call isn’t “US vs Europe” or “Norway vs Poland.” It’s whether to commit before the factory itself has stabilised. Delaying the decision makes you look hesitant. Committing early makes you lock in risks you don’t yet understand.

That’s the point at which the founder starts to conflict with board expectations — and where many scale-up plans begin to accumulate hidden debt.