NEW DETAILS: First steel beam installed at Honda/LG Jeffersonville battery plant

When complete, a plant that will cover an area equivalent to 78 football fields will be making EV batteries for American-made Honda vehicles.

The companies have committed to invest $3.5 billion, with plans to create 2,200 jobs, in the over 2 million-square-feet facility. Honda’s overall EV investment is projected to reach $4.4 billion.

“There are many beginnings when you form a new company to build a new facility, but today is an important milestone for the LGES-Honda team, for the local community and everyone working at the site to create our new EV battery facility,” Bob Lee, chief executive of the new LGES-Honda joint venture, said in a statement from Honda. “Construction is on track and we look forward to reaching many more milestones on the way to starting production of EV batteries in 2025.”

The plant is expected to be operating by the end of 2024, with an annual production capacity of approximately 40GWh or gigawatt hours. (One GWh is one billion watts.)

The joint venture aims to start mass production of pouch-type lithium-ion batteries in 2025, to be supplied only to Honda American-made electric vehicles.

To serve the new plant, Dayton’s AES Ohio says it will need to build 13 miles of 350-kilovolt power lines, with 2.5 miles of a 69-kilovolt line, a pair of new substations for transmission while relocating a distribution substation.

In all, the plan involves what will be the electric utility’s largest substation in its service territory. Electric utility AES Ohio will invest $100 million in the project, a spokeswoman said.

Future employment information can be found at www.lgeshonda.com.

A Honda spokesman said the company has no update beyond what was released Tuesday.

Also Wednesday: Honda said it led all automakers with five Honda and Acura models in the top 10 and nine models ranking in the top 15 on the Cars.com 2023 “American-Made Index.”

For this year’s index, the top 10 models included the Alabama-made Honda Passport SUV, the Ridgeline pickup, Odyssey minivan and the Ohio-made Acura MDX and RDX sport-utility vehicles while the Honda Accord, Acura Integra, Acura TLX and Honda Pilot placed in the top 15.

Honda operates five auto plants in Ohio, Indiana and Alabama.

Honda is one of the Buckeye State’s biggest employers, with some 15,000 employees.