GLENDALE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A $5.8 billion electric vehicle battery park by Ford Motor Co. and its Korean partner, SK Group, is rising just off Interstate 65 in Hardin County and remains on track to begin production in 2025, officials said during a ceremonial groundbreaking Monday at the 1,500-acre site.
The Detroit automaker and the Korean conglomerate are building a pair of factories in Glendale, just outside Elizabethtown, which will turn out enough lithium-ion batteries to power about 1.3 million electric vehicles by 2026, said Jae-won Chey, executive vice chairman of SK On, SK's battery technology subsidiary.
The BlueOval SK Battery Park is the biggest economic development in Kentucky history, an investment even larger in inflation-adjusted terms than Toyota's Georgetown auto plant in the late 1980s, officials in Gov. Andy Beshear's administration have said. Construction at the site in Hardin County began in October.
The park will employ 5,000 workers and will include an onsite training center operated by Elizabethtown Community & Technical College.
"The magnitude and significance of this project cannot be overstated," Beshear said during Monday's ceremony.
Few details on pay and job pathways
While dozens of cranes navigated mud to place beams of structural steel in place, officials with the companies were unable to answer some basic questions Monday, such as the typical wage for the battery factory jobs and what credentials workers will need to obtain them.
David Hahm, CEO of BlueOval SK, said the jobs will be "good paying" but he could not be more specific.
"We are working with the local community about training," Hahm said. "And we are going to offer this great career to everybody. So those who are interested, they can come to talk to us. And we are making the program as we move forward."
Hahm directed those who are interested in working at the plant to visit its website and said hiring will ramp up in the second half of 2023.
Juston Pate, president of Elizabethtown Community & Technical College, said the college is still working with Ford and SK regarding the credentials and programming that will be offered at the future training center, which is not yet under construction. Kentucky has committed $25 million to fund the training center.
Pate said the curriculum will build on the college's existing offerings in subjects such as mechatronics, computerized manufacturing and machining and industrial electricity.
"It's not going to be, like, a brand-new program (or) just a complete overhaul of things," Pate said. "We just have to know a little bit more about the details — the nature of the jobs — and those trainings."
Pate encouraged those who are interested in battery park jobs not to wait until the onsite training center is built to enroll at ECTC.
"I would absolutely advise to come on in and talk to some of our folks about these existing pathways," he said.
Automakers ramp up EV production
The battery park is one of a handful of gigafactories underway in states like Kentucky, Georgia and Tennessee as Ford, its rival General Motors and other automakers like Hyundai look to quickly ramp up electric vehicle production.
Between the central Kentucky site and another battery factory Ford and SK are building in Stanton, Tennessee, Ford plans to produce batteries for 2 million electric vehicles by the end of 2026, Jae-won said. Ford sold about 4 million vehicles globally in 2021.
Pure EVs — cars with no gas engine — make up only about 5% of new U.S. vehicle sales today, but the automakers see the market as the future of their companies.
Ford envisions EVs making up half its sales by 2030, while GM plans to stop making gas-powered cars by 2035.
Ford's EV business is still in its infancy. So far this year, the company's three EVs — the Mustang Mach-E small SUV, F-150 Lightning pickup and E-Transit work van — have sold 47,497 units, or about 3% of the company's Ford and Lincoln U.S. sales, according to WDRB's analysis of company figures.
BlueOval SK Battery Park will be located within an hour's drive of Ford's two Louisville plants, which today make gas-powered cars, including some with hybrid-electric engines.
Kentucky Truck Plant, which makes Super Duty pickup trucks and large SUVs, employs about 9,000. Louisville Assembly Plant, which makes the Ford Escape compact SUV, employs about 4,000.
Those workers are represented by the United Auto Workers union and receive collectively bargained pay and benefits. It's unclear, however, if Ford's joint-venture battery plants with SK will have a union workforce. The UAW was not part of Monday's ceremonial announcement.
John Savona, Ford's vice president for manufacturing and labor affairs, told WDRB News in September that the company is "neutral" as to whether battery plants like BlueOval SK unionize.
"It's going to be up to the employees to organize. ... Once they get enough employees there on the site, then the employees are going to choose," he said.
