FRANKFORT, Ky. — Gov. Steve Beshear announced Monday that Kentucky will be the site of a car battery manufacturing and headquarters facility that could bring an investment of more than $600 million and create nearly 2,000 jobs.
The National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Batteries has chosen a 1,551 acre site near Glendale, about 50 miles south of Louisville, as the site for a lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant. However, the project is dependent upon the Alliance receiving an unspecified amount of federal funding.
The Alliance is a not-for-profit industry consortium of more than 50 corporations, associations and research institutions that is trying to make the United States a world leader in manufacturing the batteries.
Kentucky was selected over seven other states for the project. Beshear compared it to the announcement that Toyota would produce the Camry in Georgetown about 20 years ago.
Monday's announcement comes after Beshear unveiled last week a proposed federal research lab in Lexington that would play a key role in President Barack Obama's push to put 1 million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on the road by 2015. Beshear said the new lab &mdash a state-run partnership of Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville — will help solidify Kentucky's future in the automotive industry.
Read more at Kentucky.com