During a ceremonial groundbreaking on Monday at the 1,500-acre site, officials announced that a $5.8 billion electric vehicle battery park by Ford Motor Co. and its Korean partner, SK Group, rose just off Interstate 65 in Hardin County. It is still on schedule to start producing vehicles in 2025.
According to Jae-won Chey, executive vice chairman of SK On, the Korean conglomerate's battery technology subsidiary, the Detroit automaker, and the Korean conglomerate are constructing two factories in Glendale, close to Elizabethtown, that will produce enough lithium-ion batteries to power about 1.3 million electric vehicles by 2026.
Ford & SK Are Joining Forces
According to Gov. Andy Beshear's administration, the BlueOval SK Battery Park is the most significant economic development in Kentucky history, representing an investment larger than the inflation adjustment for Toyota's Georgetown manufacturing plant in the late 1980s. In Hardin County, work on the site started in October. The park will have 5,000 employees and a training facility run by Elizabethtown Community & Technical College. It is impossible to overestimate the size and importance of this undertaking, Beshear said at the ceremony on Monday.
On Monday, representatives from the companies responded to some inquiries, such as the typical salary for the battery factory jobs and what qualifications workers will need to earn them. Dozens of cranes maneuvered through the mud to lay beams of structural steel in place. The work will be high paying, according to the CEO of BlueOval SK. He was unable to provide any details. Regarding training, they are collaborating with the neighborhood, according to Hahm. And will make this fantastic career available to everyone. Thus, interested people are welcome to visit and speak with them. Additionally, they are developing the curriculum as they go.
The employment process will pick up in the second half of 2023, according to Hahm, who advised individuals interested in working at the plant to visit its website. The planned training center's credentials and programming are still being discussed with Ford and SK, said Juston Pate, president of Elizabethtown Community & Technical College. Construction of the training center has not yet begun. Kentucky has pledged $25 million to help pay for the training facility. The curriculum, according to Pate, will expand upon what the college now offers in areas like mechatronics, computerized manufacturing and machining, and industrial electrification.
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If you want to learn more about the Ford & SK Partnership, visit our dealership in Houston, TX. We'll be happy to tell you all about this exciting new venture. We're confident you'll be impressed by the quality and variety of vehicles available through this program.