Towering cranes pierce the sky, contrasting with the rural surroundings. It’s an early morning in June, the air already gauzy and thick, and construction is humming at the Toyota Battery mega-site in Liberty, North Carolina.
Trucks and other heavy machines dart in and out of the complex. A line of food trucks is tucked around the corner, alongside a dozen tour buses used to move workers.
Production is slated to begin in 2025. By 2030, when the seven-million-square-foot complex is fully operational, it will have fourteen production lines — ten dedicated to batteries for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electrics, and four for hybrid electric vehicles — operated by 5,100 workers. The total population of Liberty is 2,655.
Though this factory stands out for its staggering $13.9 billion price tag, it’s one of several electric-vehicle (EV) plants under construction or soon to break ground across the South.
Dubbing the region the “Battery Belt,” federal and state governments are ushering in a dizzying manufacturing boom in nearly every aspect of the EV supply and production chain — from charging stations to mineral refining and battery production to battery storage and disposal.
In Kings Mountain, North Carolina, a pair of companies backed by a $90 million grant from the Department of Defense have plans to drain a lake that was once an open-pit lithium mine, and resume mining. The companies expect it will yield enough lithium for 1.2 million electric vehicles per year; this lithium will be refined at a soon-to-open $1.3 billion facility in…
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Ben Carroll
