OSLO (Reuters) - There is some decline in the trend towards electric vehicles but the underlying development of electrifying automobiles remains in place, Northvolt CEO Peter Carlsson said when presenting the Swedish battery maker's new plant in Germany on Monday.

The Northvolt 3 battery cell factory in Heide, in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, is expected to produce climate-friendly battery cells for 1 million cars a year at the site, the company has said.

"We're seeing today some clouds on the sky, we are seeing a little bit of a decline of the electric vehicle trend overall, but I think that when you take a step back and look at the transition, the megatrend and the underlying change is there," he said.

"The fact that we are going to go from (internal) combustion to electric is without a doubt going to happen," he added.