- The U.S. Department of Energy has announced the closing of a loan worth up to $9.63 billion, which is set to be granted to BlueOval SK – a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and battery specialists SK On, which is helping to produce the next generation of EV batteries for both Ford and Lincoln EVs.
- This loan will help create up to three separate battery manufacturing plants, which are said to produce an annual combined battery capacity of over 120 GWh.
- Two of these factories are set to be constructed in Kentucky, with the other in Tennessee.
BlueOval SK gets closer to EV battery production
The $9 billion-plus loan is the largest ever to be granted through the Department of Energy’s ‘Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing’ program, and should go a significant way to ensure the U.S. can remain a major player in the future, ever-growing EV industry, and allow Ford to increase levels of vertical integration for its own EVs.
When Ford announced the joint venture with SK On back in 2021, the manufacturer said that production of lithium-ion EV batteries at these three plants will commence in 2025, though it remains to be seen if this date will remain true. So far, BlueOval SK has invested over $11 billion into the construction of these three plants.
The move is just one of several major loans offered to the automotive industry by the Department of Energy, in recent months. Other significant loans from recent weeks and months include a $7.54bn loan to Stellantis and Samsung SDI to also build EV battery factories, and a conditional $6.6bn loan to Rivian to build a new EV plant in Georgia.
This latest loan from the Department of Energy comes just one month away from President-elect Trump’s inauguration – who, as reported by Reuters earlier today, is poised to roll back the pro-EV policies of his predecessor, President Biden. Despite that, deals such as this show much of the automotive industry still remains committed to electrification
