Shuttered and at-risk facilities will be modernized and transformed.
The United States Government has announced that it will grant carmakers across the country a total of $1.7 billion to convert closed or at-risk production and assembly facilities into electric vehicle and electric vehicle supply chain production facilities. In detail, eleven plants across eight states—Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia—will be transformed as part of President Joe Biden’s Investing in America agenda.
The list includes Stellantis, which will receive $334 million to reopen its shuttered final assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois, which is expected to re-employ 1,450 jobs. Also among the 11 facilities is the company Blue Bird, which will receive $80 million to modernize and convert its facility in Georgia to scale up the production of electric school buses.
Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm highlighted that foreign competitors invest heavily in electric vehicles and underscored that the grants would help keep U.S. manufacturing competitive.
The topic of foreign competition has been at the forefront of political discourse over the last months. Recently, the U.S. and the European Union both imposed import tariffs on Chinese-made EVs. On separate occasions, President Biden and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of Chinese goods “flooding” world markets through artificially low prices.
Photo: iStock/ismael juan
