Battery start-up Statevolt said it acquired 135 acres for a 54GWh Gigafactory. It will be sited near the Salton Sea in southern California, US.
According to Statevolt CEO Lars Carlstrom, the US company plans to manufacture transportation and stationary storage batteries using domestic supply chains for lithium and other needs. The battery plant will be technology-agnostic and use modular production. That will create versality, enabling the manufacture of a variety of battery products.
Carlstrom said he’s hopeful that they’ll be able to break ground on the factory in August or September 2024. The idea is to have the first batteries in production 18 months later. Eventually the factory should be able to produce 650,000 batteries annually, which would make it one of the largest of its kind in the US.
The plan is for the lithium to be sourced from the nearby Salton Sea and the brine beneath its surrounding salt flats. Statevolt entered into a supply agreement last year with Controlled Thermal Resources. It will provide the needed lithium and geothermal power from their Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power plant.
Being produced in the US would make Statevolt’s cells attractive to US electric vehicle manufacturers seeking to qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies.
Statevolt is sister to Italian counterpart, Italvolt.
