CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Electric vehicle battery maker Microvast on Friday laid off additional employees at its Clarksville plant, but they announced plans to relocate their engineering and research-and-development operations to Clarksville.
Microvast announced in February 2021 they would bring an EV battery plant to Clarksville. As previously reported, the company is still committed to employing 230 people by 2025, but they have had to walk back their production schedule as they seek financing to finish the plant. The Clarksville plant is about halfway complete, and another $150 million is needed to finish it. On April 19, Microvast laid off 45 employees, saying they needed more time to begin production.
“We continue to focus on closing our Clarksville financing, while remaining committed to fulfilling planned customer and revenue growth,” a Microvast company official said in a statement shared Friday with Clarksville Now. “We are continually exploring additional customer sales opportunities in North America, including within the Canadian commercial vehicle market.”
The company is reducing their workforce across locations, including in Colorado and Florida. “For our manufacturing facility in Clarksville, we are slowing operations until we are able raise the capital required to complete construction,” the statement said. “Once a financing solution is in place, we will resume operations to finish the project; including hiring of appropriate staff.”
The Colorado battery cell production and battery pack assembly plant, currently in Timnath, Colorado, just outside Fort Collins, will move to Clarksville, along with the R&D operations from Lake Mary, Florida, near Orlando.
“I want to highlight that part of our strategic cost cutting plan includes consolidating of our engineering and energy storage business from Colorado to Clarksville, TN. Once project funding is established, our business consolidation in Clarksville will lead to further increases in the workforce. This additional workforce expands beyond production personnel to include incremental engineering and R&D employees that were not originally planned for the Clarksville location.”
Business is already lined up once the plant begins production: Microvast has confidential agreements in place with “approximately five key customers.”
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