By Jim Healy, Statesboro Herald.
Hyundai Motor Group is accelerating the timetable for rolling electric vehicles off the assembly line at its planned Mega Site plant in Ellabell.
The Detroit Bureau website reported Monday that Hyundai will break ground on the Bryan County factory later this year with a goal to begin EV production in the second half of 2024. The plans are ahead of the previously stated schedule to break ground in 2023 and begin production in 2025.
Announced in May, the new $5.54 billion factory is expected to have production capacity of up to 300,000 vehicles per year. The plant also will manufacture batteries for the vehicles. It is expected to create more than 8,000 jobs directly related to the plant and possibly an additional 9,500 jobs indirectly related by 2025.
The website cited sources in the South Korean Yonhap News Agency who say Hyundai wants to take advantage of the electric vehicle tax credit provisions that are part of the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act. The new bill, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Aug. 16, creates incentives to encourage people to trade their gasoline-fueled cars for electric ones by offering a tax credit of up to $7,500 for new electric vehicles and up to $4,000 for used electric vehicles through 2032.
There are restrictions for receiving the tax credit, including sedans have to be priced under $55,000 to qualify, and the cost of trucks, vans and sports utility vehicles can't exceed $80,000.
Reports about the vehicles that will be produced at the Ellabell plant are that most will be priced under those thresholds.
The price cap for used electric vehicles is $25,000.
Also, buyers would face certain income requirements to obtain a tax break. Under the bill, only buyers with household incomes under $150,000 for single taxpayers and $300,000 for married couples would qualify.
The administration hopes to make EVs more mainstream and accelerate toward an ambitious goal: to have half of all new car sales be for electric models by 2030, up from only 3% today.
First Job Fair
Barnett Southern, the Georgia company that was just awarded the site and utility development contract for the Mega Site, will hold a two-day job fair in Pooler at the end of August.
According to Barnett, the initial site clearing phase will provide approximately 120 new jobs and will need heavy equipment operators, truck drivers, supervisors and foremen. Phase 1 is slated to begin in the coming months, with completion slated for the second half of 2023.
In preparation of Phase 1, Barnett Southern will host a two-day “MEGA” hire event on Aug. 29 and 30 at the Best Western Premier hotel at 103 San Drive in Pooler. The event will be held from noon to 8 p.m. each day. For more information on the job fair, visit www.barnettsouthern.com.
EV has a bright future
Dave Williams Capitol Beat
ATLANTA – Georgia has positioned itself on the ground floor of the electric-vehicle revolution and is poised for further growth as demand for EVs takes off, the state’s economic development chief said Wednesday. Since 2020, EV manufacturers and their suppliers have invested $13 billion in Georgia while creating more than 18,000 jobs, Pat Wilson told members of a legislative study committee on the “electrification” of transportation at its first meeting.
“That’s a good start, but it’s not enough,” Wilson said. “We are going to be actively recruiting these jobs.” The joint House-Senate panel will hold a series of meetings across Georgia this summer and fall to look for ways to help move the EV industry forward in the Peach State.
Wilson said Georgia got its foot in the door of the EV industry when SK Battery America opened an EV battery manufacturing plant in Commerce early this year. The plant now has more than 1,800 employees from all over Northeast Georgia but potentially could expand to 6,000, he said.
“These manufacturing jobs are the ones keeping people in our rural communities,” Wilson said.
Close on the heels of SK Battery are two huge EV manufacturing plants being built by Rivian and Hyundai, the latter in Black Creek, which expect to employ 7,500 and 8,100 workers respectively, Wilson said.
There’s going to be more than enough demand for EVs in the coming years to occupy those plants and more, said Shannon Peloquin, a partner in the San Francisco office of McKinsey & Co., a global management consulting firm.
The number of electric vehicles on the highways is expected to skyrocket from 3 million last year to 48 million by 2030, Peloquin told the committee. More than one-third of U.S. consumers surveyed in June said their next vehicle will be an EV or plug-in hybrid, she said.
Georgia is due to receive $135 million in federal funds from the infrastructure spending bill Congress passed last year to build EV charging stations.