The federal government will grant car and auto parts factories in eight states $1.7 billion to begin producing electric vehicles and other clean energy technology, the Biden administration announced on Thursday.
Among the 11 recipients will be a Jeep factory in Belvidere, Ill., that the brand’s parent company Stellantis closed last year. The money will allow the plant to reopen and produce electric vehicles, officials said, restoring almost 1,450 jobs.
Other beneficiaries include a factory in Georgia that plans to make Blue Bird electric school buses, a General Motors factory in Michigan that will shift production from gasoline to electric vehicles, and a Harley-Davidson factory in Pennsylvania that will increase production of electric motorcycles.
The funding helps to address fears that electric vehicles will endanger jobs at factories that make gasoline-powered vehicles or parts for internal combustion engines as the industry shifts to E.V.s. To qualify for the money, companies had to commit to retraining their existing workers.
Employees at all of the factories chosen are represented by unions. Officials said they gave priority to communities that suffered disproportionately from pollution or lack of investment.
Several of the factories are in Pennsylvania, Michigan or Georgia, states where narrow margins will determine the outcome of the presidential election. President Biden, in a statement, sought to contrast his industrial policies with those of former President Donald J. Trump.
“This delivers on my commitment to never give up on the manufacturing communities and workers that were left behind by my predecessor,” Mr. Biden said.
A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, Karoline Leavitt, said the Biden administration was doing the bidding of “environmental extremists who are trying to implement the most radical energy agenda in history and force Americans to purchase electric vehicles they can’t afford while shipping our great American auto industry to China.”
The funds will preserve 15,000 jobs and create almost 3,000 new ones, Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, said on a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. In a reference to China, she said the money will allow the United States to “compete with other countries who were subsidizing their auto industries.”
The awards will draw on funds allocated by the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Democrats in Congress in 2022. The legislation provided subsidies that have fed a boom in construction of electric vehicle factories and battery plants.
Some automakers, including Ford Motor and Mercedes-Benz, have recently slowed their investments in electric vehicle manufacturing because demand has not grown as fast as they had expected. But industry analysts expect sales of electric vehicles to pick up as prices fall and more chargers become available. Affordability and charging are the biggest concerns for car buyers interested in electric vehicles, surveys show.
There are signs that consumer appetite for battery-powered cars is increasing. Sales of electric vehicles in the United States climbed 11.3 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, Cox Automotive, which tracks the industry, said Tuesday. Americans bought or leased more than 330,000 electric cars and light trucks during the quarter, accounting for 8 percent of all new cars sold or leased in the three-month period.
The German automaker BMW said Wednesday it delivered 180,000 electric BMWs worldwide in the first six months of the year, a 34 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.
Companies receiving the federal awards announced on Thursday will also be able to use the money to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles, which have both electric and gasoline motors, and other zero-emission technology such as hydrogen fuel cells.
Before they can receive the money, companies must negotiate agreements with the Department of Energy that will obligate them to meet investment and employment targets, and to provide workers with benefits like training, child care and pensions.
The grants “are not blank checks to corporations,” Julie Su, the acting secretary of labor, said. “They should uplift entire communities and maintain high wage jobs.”
The awards include a $32.6 million grant to a U.S. subsidiary of Hyundai Mobis, a Korean auto parts maker, which will convert a Toledo, Ohio, plant to make chassis for plug-in hybrid vehicles and battery systems. And $500 million will go to G.M., which will convert a plant in Lansing, Mich., from producing gasoline cars to electric models.
The Jeep factory in Illinois will receive $334.8 million and another Stellantis operation, a transmission plant in Kokomo, Ind., will get $250 million to help it make components for electric vehicles.
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July 12, 2024 at 06:24AM
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Biden Offers $1.7 Billion to Help Factories Build Electric Vehicles - The New York Times
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