The US Department of Energy announced a $9.2 billion conditional loan to BlueOval SK for the construction of three battery gigafactories. It is one of the biggest DOE loans ever made.
The DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) said the three manufacturing plants will produce batteries for Ford Motor Company’s future Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles (EVs).
The plants will be located in Tennessee and two in Kentucky, and will enable more than 120GWh of battery production annually.
BlueOval SK is a joint venture between Ford and South Korean battery maker SK On. It was created to supply Ford with batteries for its growing EV product line. It is a 50/50 partnership and each will invest over $11 billion across both locations.
Jatin Khanna, outreach and business development officer at the DOE, said: “This will be the biggest loan closing in history, almost 20 times bigger than the Tesla loan in 2012! Incredible to see how far the EV industry, and our office, has come in the past decade.”
The Biden-Harris administration’s aim is for EVs to make up at least 50% of all new car sales in the US by 2030, reach net-zero electricity by 2035 and a net-zero economy by 2050.
