Ford Motor Co. rendering of the battery plant in Kentucky
Ford Motor Co. is building $ 5.8 billion dual battery manufacturing facilities in Hardin County, Kentucky, and creating 5,000 full-time positions.
Ford Motor Co., Courier Journal Special
At $ 15 billion, EV investments are a relatively small part of the $ 1.2 trillion infrastructure deal recently passed by US lawmakers and approved by President Joe Biden.
However, in Kentucky, officials believe it has a chance of having a significant impact on a growing local industry.
With Ford Motor Co. planning two $ 5.8 billion electric vehicle battery manufacturing facilities in Hardin County, Governor Andy Beshear said the massive federal investment in the industry comes at an ideal time for the bluegrass state.
“The infrastructure bill itself will help us be ready not only to face the Ford and battery factories announcement … (but) to better compete for any future suppliers.” Looking for the Ford factories, “Beshear said opposite The Courier Journal on Monday. “We don’t have an EV battery supply chain in the United States, and given the current cost of transportation, we’ll be in a unique and special place to compete for as many as possible.”
The first of Ford’s two planned battery production plants will not open before 2025, company officials said in September when they announced the investment. However, work on the 1,500-acre factory in Glendale, about 45 minutes south of Louisville near Elizabethtown, could begin in the first half of 2022.
Related: Find out more about Ford’s $ 5.8 billion battery park with 5,000 jobs in Kentucky
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The facility – called BlueOvalSK Battery Park as part of a joint venture with South Korean SK Innovation – will produce batteries for the upcoming Ford F-150 Lightning, a pickup truck that doesn’t use gas.
Greg Christensen, Ford’s electric vehicle footprint director, said there are already more than 150,000 reservations for the truck and he doesn’t expect demand to decline anytime soon. “Once (customers) get into the electric vehicle and drive it,” he said, “they won’t go back on the gas.
“Electric vehicle adoption is leading the way in California, but it’s happening everywhere,” Christensen said. “We find customers all over the country. I keep seeing more of them in my home state of Michigan, so I would expect Kentucky to see a lot of them.”
Drone view of Ford’s huge battery park in Kentucky
Drone footage shows the location of Ford Motor Co.’s proposed giant battery factory to power a fleet of electric vehicles.
Ford Motor Co., Courier Journal Special
Ford’s investments in electric vehicles reflect part of this growing demand. In addition to the Kentucky facility, the company plans to open a similar facility in West Tennessee that will focus on battery production and vehicle assembly. Over the next five years, according to Christensen, Ford plans to spend $ 30 billion on producing electric vehicles.
Much of the money allocated to electric vehicles in the Infrastructure Bill will go towards building the country’s inventory of charging stations and investing in electric buses and ferries, which the Biden government said is “increasing the demand for US-made batteries and” will stimulate vehicles. “
That investment, Beshear said, could be a godsend for the Kentucky economy.
Ford officials estimate the Glendale battery plants will create approximately 5,000 jobs, including high-paying engineering positions. Many jobs in traditional auto plants require welding and mechanical skills, Christensen said, but battery manufacturing can be more complicated – knowledge of chemicals can be key along with a background in technical engineering, he said.
“These are great jobs. They are jobs where people work in lab coats,” added Beshear. “It’s the jobs that will generate research and development. And it’s the jobs that not only will Kentuckians be employed, but we’ll see so many people move to Kentucky.”
More coverage: Here are the incentives Kentucky used to attract Ford’s battery fleet
Beshear added that soaring transportation prices and downtime in the global supply chain in recent months have led companies to rethink the way they ship materials. Many companies place additional emphasis on “keeping as much of the supply chain together as possible so that we don’t see the kind of disruption in the future that we see now”.
The planned Ford plants are already attracting great interest from other companies in the industry, he said.
“Every day we take calls from suppliers looking to locate or search for Kentucky with dozens of potential options right now,” he said. “We want to make sure we have enough sites to build, be it access roads … (or) whether it’s running water or sewer, we work with utility companies because they need a lot of electricity to do this operate the facilities. “
Other infrastructure improvements across the state would need to be made, including renovations to the Interstate 69 bridge in Henderson and the Brent-Spence bridge in Covington.
“We try every day to improve the infrastructure that is required for these opportunities,” said Beshear. “The other thing we want to do is connect different companies either current in Kentucky or different potential companies.”
More background: A farming family, an angry governor, and the story behind the land slated for Ford’s new factory
Ford landed in part on the mega-location Glendale because the infrastructure was already developed, said Christensen. The property is adjacent to Interstate 65 and a railroad and has access to electricity and sewage. The company’s Kentucky background also helps, he said, with the added convenience of years of service at its two Louisville factories.
Improvements need to be made elsewhere in the region in order for the state to capitalize on it. But with $ 4.6 billion from the massive federal infrastructure bill earmarked for projects in Kentucky, Beshear said the money and the projects it will fund “many sites currently under corporate scrutiny” ready to be shoveled. “
“The extra work on roads and bridges will make other locations in Kentucky more attractive because you can move goods in and out faster. The airport’s money will ensure we can compete with any other state, ”he said. “… Without decades of infrastructure development on this Glendale site, we would not have pulled Ford ashore.
Continue reading: Kentucky’s Top 10 Economic Development Projects Announced in 2021
Lucas Aulbach can be reached at laulbach@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4649 or on Twitter @LucasAulbach.
