Lars Carlstrom, the founder-CEO of Italvolt, announced the launch of a new company, Statevolt, which will construct a 54GWh Gigafactory in Imperial Valley, southern California with an expected CapEx of $4 billion. To launch the new facility, Statevolt has also signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) (Earlier post).

Under the terms of the LOI, CTR will deliver sustainable, locally produced lithium and geothermal power from the company’s to-be constructed Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power development.

(Separately, the Imperial County Planning and Services Department intends to prepare an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for CTR’s Hell’s Kitchen Lithium and Power development; a scoping meeting for the proposed EIR is being held later this month.)

Statevolt is currently undertaking due diligence to determine the best location on which to build its facility. Once fully operational, the Gigafactory will be one of largest in North America, with a battery production capacity of 54GWh, serving around 650,000 electric vehicles a year at full capacity.

Led by Lars Carlstrom, the founder of Britishvolt and founder-CEO of Italvolt, Statevolt’s project team brings deep industry experience and expertise to the project, as well as an eco-system of established project development partners. Carlstrom, and the newly-formed Statevolt team, will harness previous learnings in Gigafactory design and engineering to accelerate the construction process.

CTR’s leadership team, having constructed and managed geothermal operations in the Imperial Valley region for more than 30 years, is uniquely positioned to provide Statevolt with strong regional experience and technical knowledge.

Statevolt’s planned partnership with CTR brings a new, ‘hyper-local’ sustainable business model for lithium-ion battery development in the US. The arrangement is one of the first of its kind and will see the business source its key feedstock, lithium, and its power from local resources, in order to minimize the environmental impact of production and build a more sustainable and secure supply chain.

Simultaneously it will help facilitate the development of a micro-industry in the area, delivering up to 2,500 direct jobs for Imperial Valley and the region more widely.