A Japanese electric vehicle battery technology firm will invest $2 billion to build a gigafactory manufacturing plant in Kentucky.
Envision AESC is planning a massive 30-GWh Gigafactory at the Kentucky Transpark industrial development site. The Bowling Green facility is designed to create 2,000 jobs to produce battery cells and modules for new EVs from multiple automotive manufacturers.
The construction plans echo the company’s move to add several EV battery manufacturing plants in the southern U.S.
Once completed the Envision AESC site would raise Kentucky’s overall EV battery manufacturing capacity to 116 GWh, making it tops among U.S. states, according to officials.
“The scale of this project is like nothing our community has ever seen before,” said Bowling Green Mayor Todd Alcott. “This announcement boasts the largest investment amount, jobs creation, and facility size in our history. It’s phenomenal for the future of our region.”
Officials say the economic impact of this project will generate $20 billion over the next decade and will also support approximately 5,249 new jobs in the community beyond those who will be working at the facility. At full employment, this project will generate over $233 million in new spending in the community annually
“This major investment builds on our commitment to the U.S. market, supports growth of the electrification supply chain, and secures high value jobs for future generations in the region,” Envision AESC Group CEO Shoichi Matsumoto said. “This commitment takes us one step further towards our ambition to make high-performance, longer-range batteries for a diverse range of automotive manufacturers worldwide to support the EV transition.”
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Envision AESC globally hopes to produce battery cells and modules to power up to 300,000 new EVs annually by 2027.
Earlier this year, Mercedes-Benz announced that Envision AESC will supply high-performance cell modules for all its EQ electric vehicles assembled at the new EV plant in Alabama. Under the agreement, Envision AESC will support end-to-end production for the EQs at the Tuscaloosa, Ala., facility which Mercedes Benz opened this year.
(Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]).
