First in a series, "EV Adoption Wars in the US"
The adoption rate of electric vehicles in the US has been slower than in Europe or China. But that buying trend hasn’t slowed North Carolina. It is moving full steam ahead with green energy manufacturing projects that have attracted multiple billions of dollars in private investment.
A quick state-sponsored road tour conducted in the days before Hurricane Helene slammed the southeast including North Carolina showed off what’s up. Stops included businesses along the so-called Battery Belt between Raleigh and Greensboro in the Tar Heel State, sponsored by the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
The tour offered reporters graphic evidence of work by various local and international companies to produce EV batteries (including Natron Energy’s sodium-ion variety), charging infrastructure, electric school buses, and even (but recently delayed) EVs proposed to be assembled in the US by relative EV newcomer VinFast, based in Vietnam.
Toyota’s grand battery facility in Liberty, NC
The big daddy of all these recent projects is Toyota’s $13.9 billion lithium-ion battery manufacturing megasite in Liberty, NC, southeast of Greensboro, on an 1,800-acre site surrounded by trees and nearly hidden from view from nearby roadways. More than 5,000 jobs will eventually be created for the production work, not including up to 1,000 to 2,000 jobs for construction.
What is clearly visible for miles around is a huge, white water tower marked “Toyota NC” located at the edge of the megasite as well as 525 KV high-voltage electric lines and towers that Duke Energy had to relocate to make it possible for Toyota to erect a series of buildings sitting side by side for 14 production lines, including four for hybrid EVs and 10 for battery EVs (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs).
Toyota said a year ago when it expanded its plans for the site that it would ultimately boast seven million square feet of production lines, equal to 121 football fields. Some production will begin in 2025 with phased production through 2030 and totaling 30GWh output annually.
The Toyota site in the once rural area has been a labor of love for many local planners, elected officials and business leaders for 15 years, as a search for suitable, shovel-ready open land for industrial uses went forward. Some neighbors objected along the way, wearing red T-shirts marked “No Megasite” to public hearings and questioning the burden on the sewer capacity, among other worries.
The community had lost out on another mega project a few years earlier.
“We thought we had Toyota Mazda and Toyota USA for the site, but ultimately they announced Huntsville [Alabama] in 2019,” said Kevin Franklin, president of the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation, in an interview with reporters, including Fierce Electronics. “But we were number 2 and that made us number 1 for a big project like Toyota battery…We knew we were the site to lose.”
Franklin said some of the property acquisition was contentious, but that no resident was forced off their property. Some disagreements emerged over land for new highway interchanges created to support traffic to and from the site. “Not everybody initially around the site was happy, but most were happy and glad it’s Toyota and community oriented,” Franklin said.
After years of work, everybody 'ecstatic' with Toyota’s arrival
Now that Toyota is well into building out the entire site, “everybody is ecstatic,” he added. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for us. It’s great to see collaboration across boundaries and county lines and we don’t see a lot of that.”
Public funds of more than $400 million are tallied for the project, according to various sources, with $135 million from the state for site work, wetlands mitigation and road construction. The total includes $225 million once Toyota increases hiring to above 4,500 workers and a grant for $80 million in employee withholding taxes over 20 years subject to hiring and investment targets. “The grants are not a blank check,” Franklin said. Toyota also attained energy credits from Duke in exchange for the power line relocation work.
With the expected job creation, the nearby rural areas will grow with more housing and people, including to provide workers for dozens of supporting industries supplying components for batteries. Even lithium mined from land in southern North Carolina is considered a valuable contributor to the EV battery supply chain, said Denise Desatnick, vice president of marketing and research at EDPNC. Piedmont Lithium, based in Cherryville north of Charlotte, is in the development phase of a lithium mining and production project in Gaston County.
RELATED: Hurricane Helene kills 120 people and puts HPQ mining at risk
Why is North Carolina so electric?
Economic development officials cite multiple reasons for North Carolina’s success in the battery and EV space. Twenty of the top 100 global auto parts suppliers have operations in North Carolina, which is one reason leading auto companies wanted to be in the state, officials said.
Meanwhile, employment for EV battery component and vehicle part makers has surged since 2013, with more than 37,000 people working in both sectors in the state. And, it helps that the state ranks in the top five states for students finishing auto-related degrees at 110 universities and community colleges.
In addition to the more than $19 billion in new private sector investments activated under the federal Inflation Reduction Act, $10 billion was committed in direct private investments in nine clean energy projects from August 2022 to August 2023, EDPNC said. In all, North Carolina has received $3.5 billion in funding from the IRA, passed in 2022, and the separate Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2023. The two measures will be used in North Carolina for infrastructure, electrification, renewable energy and workforce development.
Consumer EVs confront a land of gas pickup trucks
Asked about the recent reduction in Tesla EV production and other indicators that US buyers are sometimes hesitant about buying EVs, Franklin admitted there are EV adoption potholes. Buyers are worried about the price of EVs, the driving range of EVs and the scarcity in many areas of a useful charging network, according to various surveys.
Franklin understands the concerns. “We’re a rural pickup truck community… I love Toyota’s approach to this, that it will take time for the charging network to be built out and adoption
by the average individual. A lot of people will start with a hybrid and plug-ins and with range anxiety. Once batteries are solid state, a lot will change.”
Big picture, North Carolina joins much of the nation in seeing the long-term future of vehicle electrification. “The cat’s out of the bag” with electrification, Franklin said. “The investment taking place here and investments in Georgia and Ohio and the progress Tesla has made have even transformed perspectives in the right direction. Range and the charging networks continue to move.”
What about VinFast’s delay in making EVs in North Carolina?
VinFast, an EV maker based in Vietnam, announced in July it would delay production until 2028 at a new EV plant on 1,700 acres in Moncure in Chatham County, about 30 miles southwest of the capital city of Raleigh and less than a two-hour drive from the Toyota battery site. The four-year VinFast delay puts the creation of up to 7,500 jobs at the plant on hold.
State and local governments have pledged more than $1.2 billion in incentives for the project, and officials see those pledges as a means of keeping tabs on VinFast’s progress, or lack thereof. The total investment at the site was expected to be about $4 billion from VinFast. A $316 million job development investment grant from the state will only be distributed if the company meets annual hiring and investment targets, one example of the way government entities can protect initial investments in transportation and water and sewer infrastructure.
The state also has a purchase option agreement with VinFast, giving the state the right buy all or parts of the 1,765-acre site if the automaker misses hiring and construction deadlines. One such deadline calls for VinFast to commence operations by July 1, 2026.
VinFast’s delay in Moncure has no impact on the Toyota project, Franklin asserted. “VinFast is based in Vietnam and very different from Tesla and is trying to get off the ground. We are rooting very much for VinFast and the others trying to make a difference, but realistically, is everyone going to survive? Probably not, but I don’t think that will happen to Toyota.”
Toyota has been in the US for 60 years without a layoff, Franklin noted. As an expression of Toyota’s commitment to the site and US, the Prime Minister of Japan Kishida Fumio visited the site in April with NC Gov. Roy Cooper.
For his part, Cooper has pushed the virtues of the clean energy economy with Toyota and similar projects. “North Carolina’s transition to a clean energy economy is bringing better paying jobs that will support our families and communities for decades to come,” he said when Toyota announced its upscaled battery production in Liberty.
A number of training programs are lined up to help prepare the labor force for Toyota and VinFast, and dozens of other companies. Toyota has announced a $1 million investment in North Carolina students enrolled at Communities in Schools Randolph County and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, the largest of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities. Guilford Tech Community College is geared up to support training and education needs joining a number of community colleges and training programs.
Natron Energy commits to another NC megasite called Kingsboro
The Toyota battery megasite is not North Carolina's only megasite, with Natron Energy announcing in August a $1.4 billion sodium-ion battery gigafactory at the Kingsboro Business Park. Natron will take a portion of the Kingsboro site of 2,200 acres that is publicly owned and promoted through the Carolinas Gateway Partnership, a public-private entity created in 1997. Natron will build a 1.2 million square foot facility on 437 acres where it expects to produce 24GW of batteries annually.
Natron’s project promises more than 1,000 jobs, which Gov. Cooper took to rhetorical heights when he declared, “North Carolina’s momentum in the clean energy economy reaches epic proportions” with Natron’s announcement. Good jobs will be created in Rocky Mount, Nash and Edgecombe counties, he added.
Natron, based in Santa Clara, Calif., is already known as a pioneer in making sodium-ion batteries, which rely on the company’s patented Prussian blue electrodes. Sodium-ion is known to provide safe, high-power, long-life energy storage. The facility is expected to dramatically increase Natron’s production capacity, co-CEO Colin Wessells said in August.
Applications for sodium-ion batteries include backup power for AI data centers, EV fast charging stations and defense uses. Natron received a Jobs Development Investment Grant from the state's Department of Commerce for the project which commits Natron to creating 1,062 jobs at the site, for which Natron will be potentially reimbursed nearly $22 million over 12 years. Separately, the state also agreed to provide nearly $30 million for the first use of the North Carolina Megasite Readiness Program managed by the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
Officials are seeking other businesses for the bulk of the Kingsboro megasite, which has the potential for CSX rail service.
Kingsboro had been the prospective site for Triangle Tyre, a Chinese tire maker, before the company pulled out in 2022 and returned its 400-acre site to Edgecombe County. But the Carolinas Gateway Partnership and other officials took the reversal in stride, looking to the next opportunities.
“It took 20 years to make sure Kingsboro was shovel ready and to prepare for the future,” said Laura Ashley Lamm, communications consultant for the partnership. “Natron came to us.”
COMING SOON to Fierce Electronics: North Carolina is also home to other electric industry pioneers: Forge Battery is launching a lithium-ion gigafactory; Kempower North America is opening an EV charger factory in Durham; and Thomas Built Buses is passing major milestones in production of yellow electric school buses.