About 1,600 to be laid off as Ford repurposes BlueOval SK for energy storage in KY
About 1,600 Kentuckians will be laid off as Ford Motor Co. repurposes its battery manufacturing capacity and facilities in the Bluegrass State to make energy storage systems for data centers, utility companies and large-scale industrial and commercial companies.
Facilities at BlueOval SK in Glendale — the result of a now defunct joint venture between the automaker and a South Korean battery maker to make batteries for electric vehicles — will be converted to manufacture a special kind of lithium-ion cells, battery energy storage system modules and 20-foot modular data center containers.
Roughly 1,600 people working at BlueOval SK will be laid off, Ford executive Andrew Frick said Dec. 15. Those workers will have the opportunity to apply for positions with the Ford subsidiary anticipated to take over running the facility now that the joint venture is null and operations have been separated.
On a call Monday afternoon, Frick said to start, the new energy storage business in Kentucky will have 2,100 employees. That’s about 400 fewer than were anticipated to work at one of two completed, operational facilities in Glendale.
Combined, the state’s BlueOval SK facilities were anticipated to employ 5,000 people.
Frick said BlueOval SK employees will be given the required 60-day notice of termination required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
A BlueOval SK spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment and a WARN notice has not been filed as of 4:30 p.m. Dec. 15.
The National Labor Relations Board is set to host a two-day hearing later this week on the contested August election where workers voted by slim margins to join the United Auto Workers. It’s unclear whether the hearing will still take place.
The energy storage initiative will “leverage underutilized electric vehicle battery capacity to create a new, diversified and profitable revenue stream for Ford,” the company said in a news release.
The automaker said Monday it plans to hire new employees at the Kentucky facility and invest roughly $2 billion over the next two years to scale the battery energy storage system business.
Energy storage systems capture and store energy to release later.
Ford’s new business, which will include sales and service, is meant to capture the demand for battery energy storage from data centers and infrastructure to support the electricity grid.
“Leveraging more than a century of manufacturing expertise and licensed advanced battery technology, Ford plans to bring initial capacity online within 18 months, positioning the company to capture share in the growing U.S. battery energy storage systems market,” the automaker said. “Ford currently plans to deploy at least 20 GWh (gigawatt-hour) annually by late 2027.”
A gigawatt is 1,000 megawatts and has the capacity to supply large power plants or small cities with electricity. A single gigawatt-hour could power more than 1 million homes for an hour, charge 300 million smartphones or supply an electric car with enough energy to circle the earth 120 times, according to Sol Systems, a clean energy firm building solar systems across the country.
The repurposing plan was announced Monday along with a series of actions the automaker will deploy in the new year to shift to higher-return opportunities like adding trucks and vans to its lineup and ending plans to produce large EVs.
“This is a customer-driven shift to create a stronger, more resilient and more profitable Ford,” said Ford President and CEO Jim Farley in a statement. “The operating reality has changed, and we are redeploying capital into higher-return growth opportunities: Ford Pro, our market-leading trucks and vans, hybrids, and high-margin opportunities like our new battery energy storage business.”
The restructuring news from the automaker comes just days after South Korean battery maker SK On ended its joint venture with Ford for U.S. production of parts for electric vehicles.
The joint venture began in 2022 with an initial investment across U.S. facilities of about $11 billion and a promise to employ more than 10,000 people.
The split comes as electric vehicle demand slows, federal tax credits for their purchase sunset and policy favors gasoline-powered cars.
SK On and Ford said Dec. 11 the businesses would break apart their agreement to collaborate and will instead run their BlueOval SK battery plants separately starting sometime in the first three months of 2026.
Ford will take ownership of the Kentucky plants and SK On is set to assume control of a facility in Tennessee.
The South Korean company said in addition to improving financial performance by reducing debt, the split would allow it to continue to shift some of its focus from battery production to energy storage projects that could power data center facilities.
During this year’s third quarter, SK On reported an operating loss of nearly $85 million, nearly double the losses reported during the preceding quarter due in part to a decreasing number of battery shipments.
Ford’s Farley has warned since tax credits ended Sept. 30 that the sale of electric vehicles will drop significantly once they start to take up less of the market.
In July, August and September, Ford sold 545,522 vehicles, an increase of more than 8% in sales compared to the same quarter last year. About 15% of sales, or 85,789 vehicles, were Ford’s hybrid and EV models.
The two businesses, Ford and SK On, began building a nearly $6 billion, 1,500-acre campus in Hardin County in 2022. Two plants, each estimated to employ 2,500 people, are being constructed at the site where lithium-ion batteries are being made to power future Ford and Lincoln brand EVs.
The Kentucky 1 facility is the only one in Glendale producing batteries, the first of which were completed earlier this year in August where just 1,450 people are employed. The second facility was slated to open in 2026, but its construction start continues to be delayed.
Located about 90 miles southwest of Lexington, BlueOval SK is one of the state’s largest economic development deals to date.
In December 2022, Kentucky economic development officials gave final approval for $250 million in upfront public subsidies in the form of loans that can only be forgiven if the companies hit job and wage targets. The state also spent $25 million establishing a workforce training center at the Elizabeth Community & Technical College.
This story was originally published December 15, 2025 at 4:08 PM.
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