Stellantis marks milestone for Kokomo EV battery factory
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European automaker Stellantis and South Korea-based Samsung SDI on Wednesday marked a construction milestone for the joint venture’s $2.5 billion electric vehicle battery manufacturing facility in Kokomo.
Crews raised the first steel beam for the 2.5 million-square-foot facility, which Stellantis said is on pace to open in the first quarter 2025.
State and local officials, including Kokomo Mayor Tyler Moore and Indiana Economic Development Corp. Senior Vice President of Business Development Brock Herr were on hand to sign the steel beam before it was raised.
Plans for the facility, which will supply batteries for a variety of electric vehicles at Stellantis assembly plants throughout North America, were first announced last May. The project is expected to create 1,400 jobs.
Stellantis said the plant will have an initial annual production capacity of 23 gigawatt-hours, but the joint venture’s investment could grow to $3.1 billion, which would increase capacity to 33 GWh.
Since the project’s announcement, Kokomo has seen additional investment. In December, Michigan-based Soulbrain MI said it would invest $75 million to build a manufacturing facility to produce high purity electrolyte for the production of EV batteries at the Stellantis plant.
In February, Stellantis announced it would invest an additional $155 million in three of its existing Kokomo facilities to fuel the production of a new electric drive module, which will be used in its battery electric vehicles.