CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – The LG Chem battery manufacturing plant being built in Clarksville has received a significant customer.
General Motors (GM) plans to spend nearly $19 billion over the next decade to source electric vehicle battery material from South-Korea based LG Chem.
Under the contract, LG Chem will supply GM with over 500,000 tons of cathode materials through 2035.
LG Chem’s new $3.2 billion Clarksville facility is the largest foreign direct investment in state history with plans to bring over 800 new jobs to Montgomery County.
“Even with the 20-year tax incentive, they’re [LG Chem] going to be paying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxes, that’s directly going to benefit Clarksville-Montgomery County,” said Josh Ward, Vice President of Industrial Development for the Clarksville-Montgomery County Economic Development Council. “Everybody talks about infrastructure improvements, well, this is how you do it. You bring in these major companies that pay taxes, and you use those taxes to make improvements on the community.”
Ward said crews broke ground on the 420-acre site in December 2023.
“We anticipate around 2,000 construction jobs in and around the Clarksville Industrial Park for the next two or three years,” Ward said. “Now that they’ve [GM] secured this $19 billion contract with LG Chem, it’s all systems go.”
GM’s supply deal with LG Chem follows a contract it made in October 2023 with Toyota worth more than $2 billion.
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“It just further solidifies the fact that this is a quality project for our community, and gives us security and stability for a long time to come,” Ward said.
The plant is slated to begin mass production in 2026.
