Site preparation will start in June and construction in August on the $1.3 billion Nissan North America battery plant that will fuel its Leaf auto scheduled to begin production in 2012.
The automaker held a ceremonial groundbreaking May 26 at its Smyrna, Tenn., assembly plant, when Carlos Ghosn, president and chief executive officer of Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., drove one of the zero-emission electric cars.
His passengers included Daniel Poneman, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, which loaned the company $1.4 billion for the project. The entire investment totals $1.7 billion, for the lithium-ion battery plant and modifications to the existing car and truck production plant to make 150,000 of the Leafs annually.
“We will have a year of construction and a year of equipment trials” before full-scale production starts, says Mark Swenson, Nissan North America vice president of production.
Costs for the new building are still being determined as the company works with Albert Kahn Associates of Detroit, which is doing architecture and engineering for the new plant, and W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Co. of Philadelphia, Miss., the general contractor that is also doing design support work on the project.
About 250 construction jobs will be created with the new plant and 1,300 permanent jobs.
The battery plant, which will cover 1.3 million sq ft, is located behind the assembly plant, where the old test track now sits. A new test track will be built as part of the expansion, a Nissan spokesman says.
The new plant will be a sustainable building, but specifics are still being determined, Swenson says.
“A Gold LEED (rating) would be important,” he says.
The plant will produce 200,000 batteries annually, to fuel the cars coming off the line and to provide extras for chargers and dealers.
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