By David Wichner | Tucson Business News
A Utah-based lithium battery startup plans to invest more than $1 billion to build a “gigafactory” complex south of Tucson International Airport, projected to eventually employ 1,000 workers, under a proposed lease-purchase agreement with Pima County.
The county Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on the proposed agreement with American Battery Factory at its meeting Tuesday, Dec. 6.
The company, a spinoff of energy-storage systems maker Lion Energy, based in American Fork, Utah, plans to produce lithium-iron-phosphate battery cells for home and commercial energy-storage systems.
The company says it’s looking forward to opening its first factory in Tucson and is eager to share more details, pending the supervisors’ vote next week.
“We have been in close coordination with officials at all levels of state, county and city leadership to ensure that our proposal for the site will benefit both the local community in Tucson as well as the broader Arizona economy,” the company said in an online post.
