Greenworks opens new manufacturing facility in Tennessee

Greenworks Commercial, a provider of lithium-ion battery-operated, zero-emission outdoor power equipment, expanded its global footprint by opening the doors to its 180,000-square-foot Commercial Center of Excellence for Manufacturing and Engineering in Morristown, Tennessee, its first in North America.

“I’m extremely proud that Greenworks chose Morristown/Hamblen County for its newest manufacturing plant,” said Bill Britain, Hamblen County mayor. “Greenworks brings new technology and job opportunities to our community. I wish the company well and am committed to its success.” 

The facility’s initial $25 million investment will focus on the manufacture of commercial and residential lithium-ion battery ride-on mowers. This will bring more than 150 sustainable, high-tech careers to East Tennessee by the end of 2023 with up to 400 more career opportunities by 2025. This initial phase provides an annual production capacity of 30,000 ride-on mowers, gradually increasing to 80,000 by 2025.

“It’s hard to find the right words to express just how pleased I am to have Greenworks select Morristown as its location for growing their company’s goals,” said Morristown Mayor Gary Chesney. “Greenworks’ history of meeting today’s consumer needs while exploring how new equipment will meet trends of the future is a particularly unique fit for Morristown’s industrial base. I’m proud to say, ‘Welcome Greenworks.’”

The facility currently houses:

• Two automated guided vehicles based assembly lines
• A fully robotic vehicle chassis welding center with five fully robotic welding stations
• High-precision tube and sheet metal laser cutting, stamping and CNC tube-bending equipment
• A shot-blasting metal preparation center and powder-coating line
• A final inspection station including a light tunnel for visual inspection
• An exterior bumper and track test facility
  

Planned expansions for late 2023 and early 2024, include:

• Installation of an e-coating workshop and an injection molding center
• Automatic assembly lines for large commercial-grade battery modules for ride-on mowers and battery packs for commercial handheld and walk-behind product lines
• Manufacturing of commercial walk-behind mowers
• A parts and service warehouse
  

The Morristown facility is also home to the North American Center for Advanced Vehicle Engineering within the Greenworks corporate group with over a dozen mechanical, electrical, and testing engineers calling Morristown home by the end of 2023. The U.S. engineering team collaborates with Greenworks’ main R&D campus in Changzhou, China, and its Autonomous and Robotics R&D Center in Jönköping, Sweden.

The Greenworks Commercial Center of Excellence is part of a 7,000+ global workforce, with 10 global manufacturing sites, four global R&D centers with more than 750 engineers, 130 finished goods production lines and a 1.5-million-unit manufacturing output per month.

Greenworks currently produces more than 20,000 batteries, 30,000 motors and 100,000 PCBAs per day.

The Greenworks Commercial Center of Excellence is home to the commercial zero-turn mower, OptimusZ. This compelling machine is the epitome of productivity, mowing more than 21 acres on a single charge. A complete range of more than eight OptimusZ™ models was launched during the Equip Expo show in Louisville in October.

READ MORE: We visited with Greenworks at Equip Expo last year

By late 2023, Greenworks Commercial is set to begin manufacturing its fully autonomous, self-driving commercial ride-on mower, OptimusAI, in Morristown. This ride-on mower, based on the OptimusZ platform design, features GPS-RTK navigation and vision-based live-object avoidance technology, allowing both self-driving and manned-driving modes. In its self-driving mode, the system operates with an accuracy of one inch.