Ultium Cells LLC, a joint venture between General Motors and LG New Energy, received the loan on a conditional basis. Tennessee, Michigan to build battery plants.
In order to support the development of the battery industry, the U.S. government has come up with a loan program called “Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM)”, and the new loan is part of ATVM.
The ATVM program has previously provided low-interest loans to Tesla, Ford and Nissan, which also involved battery manufacturing.
Ultium said in a statement that the new facility will create more than 5,000 high-tech jobs in the United States.
GM and LG will invest more than $7 billion to build three battery plants in the United States. The Ohio Warren plant will start production in August and currently employs about 700 people at the plant. The Tennessee plant is expected to start production in 2023, and the Michigan plant is scheduled to start production in 2024.
In April, the U.S. Department of Energy provided a $107 million loan to graphite miner Syrah Resources to build the plant.
So far the U.S. Department of Energy has received more than $18 billion in total loan requests for the auto project, with at least another $5 billion in the pipeline and more loans to be issued by the Department in the future.
Syrah, an Australian company, used the loan to expand its plant in Louisiana, which processes graphite from Mozambique and turns it into electrodes. The plant will produce electrodes for 2.3 million vehicles by 2040.
