$4 billion Gigafactory coming to Imperial Valley produced by founder of Statevolt
Gigafactory expected to be built by 2025 and to bring over 2,000 jobs to Imperial County.
IMPERIAL VALLEY, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) - Today at the Lithium Valley Stakeholder meeting, the Imperial Valley Economic Development Corporation announced the founder of Italvolt launched a new US based company, Statevolt to construct and invest $4 billion into a 54GWh gigafactory in Imperial Valley.
CEO and founder Lars Carlstrom of Statevolt says the company is building cells for EV batteries.
"We intend to produce batteries for $650,000 cars in 2025, well to be honest, we will not be up to scale with that type of production in 2025, but maybe we can produce batteries for 50,000 in 2025 and then ramp up until 2028," said Carlstrom.
He said it's going to take time to ramp up these big production facilities but that means the demand for batteries are going to be much higher than the supply.
Carlstrom said the gigafactory here is an amazing opportunity and will make a huge social impact.
"We are going to hire up to 2,500 people at least direct jobs and in the greater ecosystem, you can see that these 2,500 jobs can also accelerate 7-8,000 jobs depending on how you're doing with the supply chain," Carlstrom said.
With the upcoming jobs that will be available, Imperial Valley College is implementing programs to their students to help them prepare and make sure they can qualify for the positions.
Imperial Valley College Dean of Workforce and Economic Development , Efrain Silva said the school has been working with the lithium companies now for several months in trying to identify the specific skillsets the students will need when they begin to hire employees for their operation.
"We're working on a lab technician program, we're also working on a plan operator program and also an instrumentation technician program. We have journeyman, we have experts in the field that are helping me write the curriculum to be validated by the industry itself," said Silva.
Carlstrom said he's excited about bringing his company and developing here in the Imperial Valley.
"The most exciting thing for us is actually that we are now launching the hyper local concept where we can actually digest lithium and energy direct on site and this is the first product in the world that's able to do that. It'll shorten the supply chain at this extent which will significantly reduce the impact on the environment compared to our competitors," Carlstrom said.
Carlstrom said Statevolt does have a site from Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) they are considering, but are still determining the best location on where to build their facility.
He said it's going to be 3.2 million sqft.
"It's one of the 10th largest footprints in the world, so it's massive," said Carlstrom.
Statevolt expects to start construction within the next year depending on the permitting process to be able to produce batteries by 2025.
