for the Runners-Up

States with Population 10+ Million

Continuing the high-level theme for this year’s honors, EV and battery projects are all over the Silver Shovel states, too, and tend to be among the biggest deals that brought Shovel honors.

Georgia landed one of the biggest, the Hyundai project in Ellabell, which is recognized as a Manufacturing Project of the Year. It’s a $5.5 billion plant that is expected to employ more than 8,000 people and turn out as many as 300,000 cars a year. But it’s not the only game of this kind for Georgia — Norway’s FREYR has a $2.6 billion battery plant in the works in Newnan that will employ about 700. This plant is slated for energy storage in general, not just for cars, but the company says it has gotten lots of interest from EV manufacturers.

In Silver Shovel winner Michigan, General Motors is spending $4 billion in Orion Township where it will build full-size EV pickups. Add to that the $2.5 billion Ultium Cells project in Lansing, the $1.7 billion LG Energy Solution project in Holland, the Magna Electric Vehicle Structures expansion in St. Clair, and the $1.6 billion Our Next Energy project in Novi (a Manufacturing Project of the Year), and that’s a whole lot of EV-related jobs in an automotive state.

Silver Shovel