Brisbane EV firm’s expansion is turbo-charging jobs in Tennessee
The Queenslander Staff
A Brisbane-based electric car charging company is creating 500 new jobs – but the expansion will benefit workers in the United States rather than Queensland.
Tritium is establishing a new factory in Tennessee that will produce up to 30,000 new electric vehicle chargers a year once the plant is at full capacity.
Tritium chief executive Jane Hunter was joined by US President Joe Biden at the announcement.
The Biden administration has a target that half of all vehicles sold in the US by 2030 will be battery electric, fuel-cell electric or plug-in hybrid, and has pledged $7.5 billion for deploying a network of 500,000 EV chargers along highway corridors.
Ms Hunter said the ambition on EVs in the US was what decided where the company’s next manufacturing plant would be located.
“Nations that are at the forefront of this electric future will benefit economically,” she said at a reception at the White House.
“President Biden’s transport electrification policies have contributed to enormous demand for Tritium’s products here in the US, and that directly led us to pivot and change our global manufacturing strategy.”
The new manufacturing facility will be built in Lebanon, Tennessee and will house up to six production lines for Tritium’s DC fast chargers.
With under two per cent of the national vehicle fleet being electric, Australia has one of the slowest adoption rates of EVs in the world.
Ms Hunter said Australia has not put in place policies to promote EV take up, including tax incentives to reach targets.
“If the government just gives nice clear messages on that, we’d start to see Australians shift quite rapidly,” she told Fairfax Media.
