Amo Realty

Georgia’s quest to become the EV capital of the United States continues at a razor clip. In late May, Hyundai announced plans to develop a new $4.3 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Byron County. The car manufacturer is partnering with LG Energy Solutions on the venture. In a memorandum of understanding, Hyundai CEO Jaehoon Chang and LG CEO Youngsoo Kwan stipulated that the partnership would develop a factory for producing EV batteries outside of Savannah.

This will be the second Hyundai EV battery plant in the Peach State. Hyundai also currently has plans in the work for a plant in Bartow County in partnership with SK On. That factory will produce enough batteries for the more than 30,000 Hyundai EVs being manufactured at the company’s Savannah EV vehicle manufacturing facility.

According to a press release, groundbreaking for the new Byron County EV battery plant will occur later in 2023. The factory should start delivering batteries by 2025 at the earliest. The plant is expected to employ around 3,000 workers, and it will have a production capacity of 30 gigawatt-hours. This power will then be inserted into Hyundai Mobis battery packs, which are used in Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis EVs.

Construction of the Byron County electric vehicle manufacturing facility commenced in early January 2023. Clearing of the 3,000-acre tract got underway in August of 2022. The $5.5 billion manufacturing plant will employ 8,100 workers between the EV plant and the battery plant. Initially, the EV plant will produce 300,000 EVs per year. It has the capacity to produce 400,000 per year, however, and production could easily ramp up as EVs become more and more common.

Hyundai is no stranger to the South. The company has operated a 3.4 million square foot manufacturing plant in Montgomery, Alabama, since 2005. The 1.8 billion factory sits on a little over 1,700 acres. Hyundai’s upcoming EV manufacturing facility will be three times larger than its plant in Alabama – and that’s not including the battery plant.

Thanks to the arrival of Hyundai in Byron County, demand for housing has skyrocketed. Many families from South Korea have relocated to the area to support the plant, favoring the communities of New Hampstead and Pooler. This same talent pool will be available for the new battery plant too.

A $70 million Quick Start Center has also been set up along Highway 280. The facility provides training to the local workforce for EV manufacturing processes and technologies.

Hyundai isn’t the only company setting its sights on Georgia for the production of EV technologies. In 2021, Rivian announced plans for a $5 billion EV manufacturing plant outside of Atlanta. Around the same time, SK Innovations, a division of SK On, began work on a lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility in Commerce. From there, clean energy manufacturers and suppliers have invested more than $1 billion in facilities across the Peach State.

Georgia has been attracting many high-tech manufacturing firms over the last few years. For example, Hanwha Group is working on the development of a QCells solar panel manufacturing plant in Cartersville; the company used federal climate and tax measures to help fund the $2.5 billion facility. Another firm, SungEel HiTech Co., is currently building a $37 million battery recycling plant in Toccoa.

Like these other firms, Hyundai and LG are taking advantage of clean energy manufacturing incentives included in the Inflation Reduction Act to get their new manufacturing facilities off the ground. The state of Georgia has worked feverishly to attract electric vehicle manufacturers and other high-tech, cutting-edge companies to the state.

With one EV vehicle manufacturing plant and soon to be two EV battery manufacturing plants in the Peach State, Hyundai is poised to be on the leading edge of EV vehicle manufacturing in the US. The technology is only going to become more prevalent, so having a strong base for this type of industry is a positive thing for Georgia.

Thanks to the training provided by Quick Start Centers, Georgia also boasts a well-educated, highly trained workforce to support new EV facilities. With the ongoing influx of EV suppliers to the state, it’s safe to say that Georgia will enjoy the fruits of the EV revolution for many years to come.