Ford Motor Company is just one of several global automakers planning heavy investments in electric vehicles (EVs) and battery technologies this decade. However, as outlined in a recent announcement, the Blue Oval brand, as Ford is affectionately known, is taking significant steps forward and creating thousands of jobs in the process. Ford and its partners will build enormous development and production facilities in Tennessee and Kentucky to support its electric vehicle manufacturing and sales goals.
The two facilities are part of a joint venture between the automaker and SK Innovation, a battery supplier. Called BlueOvalSK, the partnership will generate an investment of $11.4 billion and around 11,000 jobs between the two states. The South Korean company also has two facilities in Kentucky that are slated to open in 2022 and 2023.
The larger of the two sites is planned for Stanton, TN, called Blue Oval City. Ford says the campus will be one of the largest auto manufacturing sites in U.S. history. The 3,600-acre campus will take up nearly six square miles and house approximately 6,000 jobs once operational. The west Tennessee site will build Ford’s electric F-Series pickup trucks and handle advanced battery production.
Ford says its goal is to consolidate vehicle assembly, battery production, and supplier operations on one campus, lowering its costs and reducing the carbon footprint associated with the manufacturing process. The site will incorporate more sustainability processes in the future, including using renewable energy, such as geothermal and solar power.
Ford’s Kentucky facility will open in Glendale, KY, in 2025. BlueOvalSK Battery Park will house 5,000 jobs across two co-located battery plants. The facilities will produce a combined 86 gigawatt-hours annually, which will power both Ford and Lincoln vehicles in the future.
Ford’s investment of $7 billion puts it at the forefront of automaker spending in the U.S., as it’s the largest-ever single commitment by dollar amount in the country’s history. The automaker will invest a total of $30 billion through 2025 and targets an EV goal of 40 to 50 percent of its total global vehicle volume by 2030. As part of that, Ford is spending a total of $525 million on training its technicians to service the next-generation, connected electric vehicles.
Ford is the source of information for this article. It was accurate on September 29, 2021, but it may have changed since that date.
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