The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced a conditional commitment for a loan of up to $9.2 billion to BlueOval SK LLC (BOSK) for the construction of three manufacturing plants to produce batteries for Ford Motor Company’s future Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles.
Together, the plants, one located in Tennessee and two in Kentucky, will enable more than 120 GWh of US battery production annually. The project is expected to create a total of approximately 5,000 constructions jobs in Tennessee and Kentucky, and 7,500 operations jobs once the plants are up and running.
BOSK is a joint venture between Ford Motor Company (Ford) and SK On, a global leading Korean EV battery manufacturer. BOSK was created to supply Ford with batteries for its growing EV product line.
The announcement is one of several recent LPO conditional commitments under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program in the last year, demonstrating LPO’s leadership in building a strong domestic supply chain for EVs.
Through ATVM, LPO provides loans to projects related to fuel-efficient vehicles and eligible component manufacturing in the United States. Recent announcements have spanned the critical mineral and battery supply chains and involved mineral processing, battery manufacturing, and battery recycling.
While this conditional commitment demonstrates DOE’s intent to finance the project, several steps remain for the project to reach critical milestones, and certain conditions must be satisfied before DOE issues a final loan.
Source:batteryindustry
