- Ten new battery plants are set to go online this year, giving the U.S. EV industry a shot in the arm and the infrastructure needed to move supply chains away from China.
- LG Energy Solution, SK On and Panasonic are some of the battery giants spearheading this effort.
- President Trump’s policies will help determine how quickly and effectively these plants help automakers grow their EV sales.
Amidst last year’s presidential elections and all the political and cultural firestorm that came with it, it was easy to ignore the quiet revolution that was underway in the U.S.: a battery manufacturing blitz.
China still dominates global battery production, but North America has been the world’s fastest growing region for planned cell capacity. Now, 10 of those plants are coming online this year, just after the U.S. elected a climate-denier president openly hostile towards clean energy programs.
With Trump threatening to kill EV tax credits and slap 25% tariffs on vehicles and parts from Canada and Mexico, the future of these factories is anything but certain. And the backers of these plants—automakers, battery giants and mostly Republican state governments—may find themselves in a tough spot, at least in the short term.
Several automakers including General Motors, Hyundai, Kia, Honda and Ford have witnessed record EV sales in the U.S. over the past couple of years. That’s thanks to generous incentives and appealing lease and financing deals.
Now their battery suppliers are on the cusp of making those packs here in the U.S., gradually reducing reliance on China. But will demand hold up if those incentives disappear and tariffs inflate prices? The short answer is: No one really knows. The longer one depends on how far Trump and his deputies are willing to go in crippling America’s clean energy transition.
Rendering of Ford’s BlueOval SK battery park in Kentucky.
“They’re already built,” Evan Hartley, analyst for Benchmark Mineral Intelligence told Inside Climate News. “You can’t stop it, and the momentum is there. And most of them are in Republican states. It’s difficult to take away many thousands of jobs promised to your key voter base.”
Citing data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, Inside Climate News reported that collectively, the 10 new plants will grow America’s battery manufacturing capacity to 421.5 gigawatt-hours annually, a near-double growth over the last year.
South Korean and Japanese automakers and battery giants are spearheading the vast majority of this “battery boom.” Toyota’s $14 billion battery plant in Liberty, North Carolina is ready and will begin producing batteries for EVs, hybrids and plug-in hybrids in April.
Battery giant SK On is building three facilities. Two in partnership with Ford in Tennessee and Kentucky and another with Hyundai in Georgia. And LG Energy Solution has also erected two facilities, one in Ohio in partnership with Honda and another stand-alone plant in Arizona.
More factories from Panasonic (Kansas), Samsung SDI and Stellantis (Indiana), Envision AESC (Kentucky) and Our Next Energy (Michigan) are nearing completion. As far as America’s EV revolution is concerned, the ship has sailed. It may prove too big to be stopped.
As one EV expert recently told me, we’re at the “hockey stick curve” of EV adoption, referencing a period of seemingly slow initial growth before an explosive surge. American buyers may continue buying EVs in droves like they have over the past year if localization brings prices down and offsets the loss of incentives.
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