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It was roughly six years ago that Chautauqua County made a pitch for an Amazon regional distribution center that, when completed, would have been one of the largest in the world.
County Executive PJ Wendel, Mark Geise, county IDA director and former U.S. Rep. Tom Reed all advocated for Amazon to consider Chautauqua County, which was pushing land the county owns in Ripley as well as the Mason Industrial Park in Ellicott.
The project never came to fruition, but there was a lot of genuine excitement around the possibility at the time.
Last week Amazon made a quieter entry into Chautauqua County – but it's one that will support a county manufacturing operation as it finishes redeveloping its Ellicott plant and sets itself up for the future.
Electrovaya recently announced a commercial agreement with Amazon, Electrovaya’s largest customer. Amazon will continue buying Electrovaya’s Infinity series of lithium ion batteries for use in Amazon facilities, while Amazon has the option to purchase up to 20% of Electrovaya’s common stock shares.
This matters to Chautauqua County because Electrovaya's Gigafactory in Ellicott is poised to produce much of the product that Amazon is going to be buying. Having one of the world's largest companies, and a company that doesn't appear to be slowing down any time soon, as a key customer is an economic boost for the county's newest major manufacturer as it finishes work on its local facility. As Electrovaya adds capacity locally, it can continue to grow its revenues. Those who listen to Dr. Raj DasGupta, the company's CEO, talk about the future will hear the story of a company that is ready to begin branching out from forklift batteries – which is Electrovaya's most-sold product – into new markets that may include the robotics industry and could begin delivering batteries for energy storage systems that can be used at data centers in 2027.
We missed out on Amazon six years ago. That's too bad, because a distribution center could have been a jobs provider that our economy could use right now. But at least, through Electrovaya, the e-commerce giant will still have a role in our local economy as Electrovaya eyes future growth powered, in part, by its facility in Ellicott.