The Upstate of South Carolina will soon be at the forefront of developing greener alternatives for getting around town.
At a news conference at the Statehouse in Columbia Thursday, Korean electric vehicle manufacturer CT&T announced a joint venture with 2AM Group of Spartanburg to build an electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Spartanburg County.
The company says it will invest $21 million and create 370 new jobs over the next five years.
Joseph White, Chief Operating Officer of CT&T, said, "We now plan to make a great portion of the vehicles that will be distributed in North America in Spartanburg County starting September 1st."
The electric vehicles are what are known as “low-speed vehicles” (LSVs) or “neighborhood electric vehicles” (NEVs). They can go up to 70 miles on a single charge from common household electricity. Their top speed legally is 25 miles per hour but are allowed on roads with speed limits of 35 mph our less. A two-seat vehicle costs about $14,000, but tax credits bring down the cost.
Company officials say a large part of their target market for the vehicles is commercial and law enforcement use. White says, "These vehicles only cost about $10 a month to operate, so we can drive down the cost of operating security vehicles for municipalities, for businesses, for campuses at the university level. So they make a lot of sense not only ecologically but economically also."
CT&T donated one of its vehicles to the state Bureau of Protective Services, already painted and equipped with lights and siren.
Artie Perry, President and CEO of 2AM Group, says anyone who wants to apply for one of the jobs should contact the Spartanburg County Workforce Center. The process will go through a three or four month engagement where we will look through all the requirements of what the staffing and the structures going to be required.
"Politically, I'm going to say anybody can apply and we will train them. There will be some requirements that'll be laid out and we'll probably go through those specifically as they come through the application process. It's probably better for me to deal with that then," he says.
The plant will be located in Duncan in the former Lear Corporation building, next to 2AM Group’s current location. Both are next to Spartanburg Community College’s Tyger River Campus. White says the 100,000 square foot building will be remodeled and will be able to produce about 10,000 vehicles using one shift and can be expanded up to 30,000 vehicles with three shifts.
Anyone wishing to apply for a job should contact the Spartanburg Workforce Center of the state Department of Employment and Workforce at 364 S. Church St. in Spartanburg, or at 864-573-7525.
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