Ultium Cells LLC officials recently announced that the company would invest $275 million to expand its in-progress battery cell manufacturing plant in Spring Hill. Ultium Cells is a joint venture of LG Energy Solution and General Motors that supplies battery cells for GM Ultium Platform-based electric vehicles.
.@UltiumCells will invest $275M & create 400 new jobs to expand its battery cell manufacturing plant in Spring Hill.
This is Tennessee's second big electric vehicle announcement in two weeks, proving we are the ideal location to support the auto industry. https://t.co/swYy3Kijzc pic.twitter.com/aAQQIfisiF
— TNECD (@TNECD) December 2, 2022
In April of last year, Ultium Cells announced it would be constructing a 2.8 million-square-foot facility to mass-produce battery cells for electric vehicles and create more than 1,300 new jobs for the Spring Hill area, as previously reported by The Tennessee Star.
The company’s additional $275 million expansion to the facility will “increase battery cell production by more than 40 percent, from 35 gigawatt-hours to 50 GWh,” according to a press release by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD). The new expansion is expected to create an additional 400 jobs, bringing the total number of jobs expected from the project to 1,700.
Plant operations are expected to begin in late 2023.
“This investment will allow us to provide our customer GM more battery cells faster and support GM’s aggressive EV launch plan in the coming years,” Tom Gallagher, vice president of operations of Ultium Cells LLC said in a statement. “Ultium Cells is taking the appropriate steps to support GM’s plan for more than one million units of EV capacity in North America by mid-decade. We appreciate the support the state of Tennessee, Maury County and Spring Hill has shown Ultium Cells, and that support is playing an important role in making this expansion investment possible in our Spring Hill facility.”
As a result of investments from companies such as General Motors and LG Energy Solutions, the Volunteer State has made significant progress in electric vehicle manufacturing. EV-related projects have created nearly 12,000 new jobs and invested $16 billion in Tennessee since 2017, according to TNECD. The state has also produced more than 180,000 electric vehicles since 2013, ranking first in the Southeast.
In addition, the state is rapidly becoming a leader in the domestic production of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite, critical materials for lithium-ion batteries. More than 1,700 new jobs have been committed and approximately $4.3 billion has been invested in Tennessee’s EV battery manufacturing and supply chain since 2018, TNECD notes.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Ultium Cells” by TNECD.
