American Battery Factory’s First ‘Gigafactory’ Gets Closer to Reality TechCrunch

American Battery Factory’s grand plan to build a slew of American battery factories got a shock Tuesday when Tucson, Ariz., gave the company the go-ahead to set up its first factory near the airport in town.

Over the course of a decade, ABF says it will pump around $1.2 billion into the facility, saying it will be the “country’s largest gigafactory” for lithium-iron-phosphate battery cells (LFP) when complete, with a footprint of approximately 2 million square feet. ABF estimates that this will eventually bring 1,000 additional jobs to the city.

The company says its batteries will be used for both commercial and home energy storage, as well as powering electric vehicles. His plans come amid a battery materials crisis as electric vehicles gain traction in the United States (cars and SUVs currently account for 57% of transportation-related emissions in the country, according to the EPA).

ABF is a spin-off of Lion Energy, an eight-year-old energy storage company based in American Fork, Utah. The company’s effort to launch a “network” of LFP factories in the United States is one of many to seek government funding through the Inflation Reduction Act. The law provides billions in tax credits to boost domestic production of batteries and electric vehicles, prompting companies like Toyota, Honda and Chinese battery producer Gotion to build in the United States.

In a statement to TechCrunch, ABF Chief Executive Paul Charles called the Cut Inflation Act “a real game-changer,” saying the law would initially result in “about $100,000,000 a year in tax credits for our first module or manufacturing module”.

The company added that it had signed strategic supply agreements with Japanese chemicals giant Asahi Kasei and synthetic graphite company Anovion.