Ohio State, Honda announce advanced battery center partnership for research, job training

Backed by $15 million from Honda, Ohio State University announced on Monday that it will build a new center to advance battery cell research and development meant to also serve as a training hub for students and workers.

The project will include the renovation of a 25,000-square-foot facility in Ohio State's innovation district at 1305 Kinnear Rd. It is scheduled to open in April 2025.

For Honda, the creation of the center continues its work to transform Ohio into a hub for manufacturing its electric vehicles.

“This is a transformative time for the entire auto industry. For Honda, we refer to it as our second founding as we seek to fulfill our goal for carbon neutrality for our products and our operations by 2050," Bob Nelson, American Honda Motor's executive vice president, told a gathering of university, political and business leaders Monday morning at the site. "The electrification of our products plays an important, critical role in this direction."

The project has secured $22 million in commitments to date, including $4.5 million in federal funding.

The center will serve as a hub for academic and industry connections across chemical and physical sciences, engineering, business and policy.

It will be managed and operated at Ohio State by the Institute for Materials and Manufacturing Research.

Center plays role in Honda making Ohio hub for EVs

For Honda, the backing of the center is another step in the process that began a year ago when it announced a partnership with LG Energy Solution to build a plant near Jeffersonville, about 40 miles southwest of Columbus, to make batteries for Honda vehicles.

That announcement was coupled with Honda's plan to convert three of its plants in Ohio to making electric vehicles and parts.

Honda has a partnership with Ohio State that extends back to 1987.

"This is another key piece to fill out that EV hub,’’ Nelson said afterwards.

And like other Honda operations in the region such as its $124 million wind tunnel that opened in 2022, the center is meant to be agnostic in that students, workers, and manufacturers and suppliers will have access to it, according to the company and Ohio State.

"We want to create that talent hot spot that can fuel us and others in the future,’’ Nelson said.

It's not just about EVs

While electric vehicles figure to be the initial focus of the center, over time, the center will be used to study the use of batteries in other forms of transportation, such as aerospace, batteries for consumer use and batteries that could be used to hold electricity in support of the grid, said Jay Sayre, Ohio State's vice president and director of innovation, who is the acting director of the center.

Research is critical, but so is training at the center, which is meant to be accessible for students from other colleges and universities, including Columbus State Community College, and to workers who want to learn new skills, he said. Multiple colleges at Ohio State will use it.

Sayre expects at least 500 workers a year to come through the center for training.

"It's not just the hands-on research, but dedicated workforce training," he said. "It’s not just our students, but students from all over.’’

The federal grant is especially critical for the project, Sayre said.

The money will support a 4,000-square-foot dry room, which is necessary for the assembly of battery cells due to the extreme moisture sensitivity of cell components, according to Ohio State. The dry room and new battery cell assembly equipment will facilitate the accelerated development and translation of batteries from the lab to practical scales, including the electric vehicle market.

mawilliams@dispatch.com

@BizMarkWilliams

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Honda commits $15 million for Ohio State battery cell research center