Ford BlueOval SK Battery Park Opens New Training Center

May 10, 2024 11:09 am

Along with pushing back its planned production start dates for a pair of future EV models amid falling demand, Ford battery partners SK On and LG Energy have also recently shed jobs in response to changing consumer preference as well. However, work continues at the Ford BlueOval City campus in Tennessee and Ford BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky, as construction of the latter site began in late 2022. Since then, the focus at Ford BlueOval SK Battery Park is on hiring the workers that will soon make it tick and earn between $21 and $29 per hour, as well as training them. In fact, the joint-venture broke ground on a new training center just over one year ago, and now, that facility is officially open.

Now that construction is complete, the 42,000-square-foot ECTC BlueOval SK Training Center will start onboarding classes in June, but 700 workers have already been hired for the future manufacturing plant. To help mark this particular occasion, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear was on hand for a ribbon cutting ceremony, along with officials from the Elizabethtown Community and Technical College (ECTC), BlueOval SK, SK On, Ford Motor Company, and Trace Creek Construction, as well as state legislators and ECTC students.

At the new ECTC BlueOval SK Training Center, the primary curriculum will seek to support battery knowledge, roles, and skills. Employees will receive comprehensive training in SK On’s proprietary technical, quality, and manufacturing processes in virtual reality labs, an industrial maintenance lab, a work simulation lab, and ergonomics techniques classrooms.

“Thanks to great Team Kentucky partners like Ford and SK On, we’re the electric vehicle battery capital of the United States, and I want to thank them for betting on Kentucky and our world-class workforce,” Governor Beshear said. “I also want to thank ECTC and Trace Creek Construction for getting this center ready ahead of schedule. It is an exciting time to be a Kentuckian – this summer we’re going to start preparing folks for new jobs at BlueOval SK – a park that is going to benefit Kentucky families for generations to come.”

We’ll have more on Ford BlueOval SK Battery Park soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for non-stop Ford news coverage.

By Brett Foote

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.