Second Expansion in Four Months Brings AESC’s South Carolina EV Battery Project to $3.1B

Just four months after announcing an expansion of its electric vehicle battery production facility under construction in Florence County, S.C., battery technology manufacturer AESC has announced plans to build a second facility on the same 500-acre industrial park campus.

Announcing the venture in December 2022, AESC broke ground last June at the Florence Global Technology and Commerce Park for the initial $810-million, 1.5-million-sq-ft manufacturing facility, which will supply battery cells for next-generation EVs produced by BMW’s Spartanburg, S.C., assembly plant. Just six months into construction and one year after the initial announcement, AESC debuted its plans to double the project’s size to ensure adequate production capacity when operations begin in 2026. 

In March it announced the second expansion, a $1.5-billion plant that will extend AESC’s partnership with BMW, providing electric vehicle battery components for the automaker’s Mexico assembly operations. Scheduled to open in 2027, the additional project brings AESC’s total investment in Florence County to more than $3.1 billion

Clayco’s Greenville, S.C., office and Lamar Johnson Collaborative are providing design-build services for the initial project, which ranked twentieth on ENR Southeast’s 2023 Top Starts at a construction cost of $405 million. 

According to AESC, the new manufacturing plants will be powered entirely by clean energy. The company adds that it increasingly relies on recycled materials, which will lead to an overall reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from cell production.

The expansion follows state approval to issue an additional $111 million in general economic development bonds to support the costs of a county-owned warehouse building, site preparation, on-and off-site road and infrastructure improvements and expansion of the training center that will serve both manufacturing facilities.