DETROIT – These days, billion-dollar plants to make the massive batteries that power electric vehicles are announced so often that — even if you follow the auto industry — it’s hard to keep track of them all.
Did you hear about the one from KORE Power in Arizona? Samsung and Stellantis in Indiana? The Chinese project in Michigan, the Norwegian one in Georgia, the Japanese one in South Carolina?
Or, if you aren’t impressed by a billion dollars any more, how about the $5 billion electric vehicle and battery project in Georgia? No, not that one — the other one.
All these factories — plus even bigger ones from Ford and General Motors — are part of a remarkable industrial shift.
Automakers are preparing for electric vehicles, currently around 6% of new vehicle sales in the United States, to conquer a huge share of the market in just a few years. That means companies will need a tremendous number of batteries.
The think tank Atlas Public Policy recently tallied all the announced projects located in the United States, as part of research supported by an automaker trade alliance, and provided updated numbers to NPR in December. All told, the group counted more than $128 billion of announced investments into electric vehicle plants, battery plants and battery recycling.
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