Battery production at Electrovaya’s plant in Ellicott will begin in April.

Company officials had said in February during a quarterly conference call with investor analysts that production was expected to begin in April, the company said last week that it is completing preparations to be in a position to start the first phase of battery system manufacturing operations in April. It’s earlier than some earlier estimates while confirming that February’s timeline is being met, with initial investments into assembly and testing equipment made and employees being hired.

Battery system assembly in Ellicott is the first part of Electrovaya’s overall plan to invest in American manufacturing, which includes both lithium ion cells and battery systems, with overall investments estimated to exceed $70 million over the first phase in Electrovaya’s 52 acre campus in Ellicott in what had been a vacant 137,000 square feet industrial building. The battery manufacturing facility in Jamestown is expected to lead to over 250 jobs and support Electrovaya’s exports to Japan, Canada and Australia. Furthermore, the facility will both benefit from and help support developing supply chains in the US for lithium-ion battery production.

“We are excited to start these assembly operations in Jamestown, a first step for what will be our largest manufacturing site with the majority of our staffing and capital investments.”said Dr. Raj DasGupta, CEO of Electrovaya. “Electrovaya is in an extremely strong position as we embark on these investments where we will be one of very few independent lithium ion battery manufacturers in the US. We also continue making progress with regards to our detailed planning for the larger capital investments associated with our scheduled lithium ion cell manufacturing activities.”

On Monday the company announced the closure of a $50.8 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Electrovaya can draw upon the loan now that it has met all of the bank’s conditions. The Export-Import Bank funding is paying for Electrovaya’s battery manufacturing buildout at the Ellicott plant, including equipment, engineering and set-up costs for the facility. The company is using $46.4 million of the funding for lithium-ion cell, module and battery pack manufacturing and $5.3 million for construction and engineering. Electrovaya also secured an intercreditor agreement with the Bank of Montreal to provide a $20 million loan to support working capital requirements. This facility lowers Electrovaya’s cost of capital with reduced interest rates and fees, strengthening its financial position for expansion. The new loan, with an initial three year term, will support Electrovaya’s growth plans over the next few years and includes lending capabilities for both Electrovaya’s U.S. and Canadian operations and helped unlock financing from the United States Export-Import Bank for Ellicott manufacturing investments through an intercreditor agreement.

Both are signals that financing agreements that were hurdles to the opening of the Ellicott plant have been cleared.

“The funding from EXIM is a game changer and instrumental for our capacity expansion strategy of lithium-ion cell production in the United States,” DasGupta said. “Our facility in Jamestown is powered by low cost renewable hydro electricity and will produce the longest lasting and safest lithium-ion cells in the world when it starts commercial shipments in 2026. We expect this expansion to support our plans for exponential growth and lead to improvements in our margins through vertical integration. We are also well underway with the start of battery system assembly in Jamestown, which is anticipated to start in (the second quarter of 2025).”

Electrovaya has also seen increasing demand for its products in a range of heavy duty and mission critical electrified applications. That demand led to the need to grow its manufacturing footprint and, eventually, to Ellicott to make its Infinity lithium-ion ceramic cells. The company announced two new contracts within the last week. One is a second global construction OEM through its partnership with Sumitomo Corporation Power & Mobility for high voltage battery systems for a leading global Japanese headquartered construction equipment manufacturer that will be delivered in Japan in 2025 with. The second is an OEM sales channel valued at $4.2 million by a rapidly growing cold storage third party logistics operator in the United States for powering material handling electric vehicles. The end user currently operates six facilities with Electrovaya’s Infinity Battery Technology.