ANNOUNCEMENT — Andrew Rebele, president and CEO of Seattle-based Pure Watercraft, announced Wednesday afternoon his company will build a manufacturing plant in Brooke County. -- Photo Courtesy/WV Chamber of Commerce
CHARLESTON – Electricity was in the air Wednesday as a new electric motor manufacturer announced it would call West Virginia home.
Andrew Rebele, president and CEO of Seattle-based Pure Watercraft, announced Wednesday afternoon his company will build a manufacturing plant in Brooke County. Rebele made the announcement at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s 86th-annual meeting and business summit at the Justice-owned Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs.
“I’m really happy … to announce that Pure Watercraft – a company that started on my dining room table 11 years ago – is coming to West Virginia to build electric boats. We’re very happy to be here.”
Pure Watercraft builds electric boats and electric outboard boat motors. The company promotes its boats and motors as much quieter than typical gas boat engines, producing no emissions and requiring no maintenance.
The electric engines can recharge halfway to full in as little as 90 minutes on a 240-volt outlet and provide as much as 50 horsepower. The company builds pontoon boats, small and large RIBs, bass boats and coaching launches.
“I started this company with a mission, which is to develop the technology to enable a new era in boating that’s more enjoyable, accessible, and environmentally friendly than ever before,” Rebele said. “I think we can all agree that we want to preserve the outdoors for future generations. And it’s especially appreciated in a place like West Virginia that has such beautiful outdoor environments. It’s a perfect place for us.”
Pure Watercraft will renovate a former 80,000-foot steel-making facility in Beech Bottom to begin manufacturing its Pure Pontoon boat line. The commitment represents a $5 million investment and is estimated to create 100 jobs when the plant goes online at the end of 2025.
“We’re located in Brooke County … conveniently located to where we’ll get battery packs from our partner General Motors, and where it’s centrally located to distribute to our customers,” Rebele said. “it’s a perfect location for us.”
After the announcement, Rebele was joined on stage by Gov. Jim Justice and other state and federal officials. Justice praised Pure Watercraft as the latest in a line of economic development announcements over the last eight months.
“This is a company that’s going to spend millions of dollars to come to West Virginia,” Justice said. “They’re going to spend millions of dollars in being in the very northern part of our state. They’re going to rehabilitate a facility that was used long ago from the standpoint of steel production. They’re absolutely going to build electric pontoon boats.”
“West Virginia has been blessed recently to be home of so many announcements regarding business opportunity and economic development and so forth,” said Mitch Carmichael, cabinet secretary for the state Department of Economic Development. “We want to thank you really for choosing West Virginia. You could have chosen any place in the world to produce these watercraft vessels and you chose West Virginia, and it should make everyone in this room just fill with pride.”
U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and state Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, all praised the project as well.
“It is the decision that you’ve made, and we are absolutely thrilled with,” Capito said. “You will never regret it and your team that has come and talked with all of us, we want to continue to work with them and with you to make sure that this investment grows and grows.”
“We do appreciate so much the investments, but also the attention to the state of West Virginia,” Manchin said. “We’re an all-of-the-above energy state, whether it’s fossil coal, gas and oil; whether it’s basically renewables; whether it’s batteries. This is the place to be.”
“I want to thank Mitch and his team for the work that they did to bring Pure Watercraft to my county and to a site that has long been in need of redevelopment,” Weld said.
Pure Watercraft is the third large electric vehicle and battery manufacturing project announced in West Virginia since the beginning of the year. Justice announced during his State of the State address in January that Canada-based GreenPower would build electric school buses from a facility in South Charleston. Justice and other state officials attended the ribbon-cutting for the GreenPower facility Tuesday.
California-based Sparkz also announced Tuesday it would build an electric battery plant in Taylor County near Bridgeport, according to The Associated Press. The proposed manufacturing plant would employ 350 workers on the site of a former glass factory. The company first announced the proposed plant in March, which would build zero-cobalt lithium-ion batteries. Sparkz’s patents come from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
While not an electric battery or electric vehicle manufacturer, North Carolina-based steel manufacturer Nucor broke ground recently on a new steel mill in Mason County after announcing their intent to come to West Virginia in January. Nucor uses electric arc furnaces instead of coal-fired furnaces to produce steel products and seeks contracts with clean energy companies to provide power to their furnaces.
"electric" - Google News
September 01, 2022 at 01:13PM
https://ift.tt/j1QP0Lh
Gov. Justice: Pure Watercraft to build electric boats in Brooke County - The Daily Times
"electric" - Google News
https://ift.tt/Tl8kuy0
https://ift.tt/Z4MRxGg
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Gov. Justice: Pure Watercraft to build electric boats in Brooke County - The Daily Times"
Post a Comment