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For the second time in the last week, the Biden administration has announced multibillion dollar plans to invest in electric vehicle manufacturing infrastructure.
The Department of Energy reached a conditional agreement with StarPlus Energy, a joint venture between Samsung SDI and Stellantis, to provide a $7.54B loan for two new battery plants in Indiana, it announced Monday. The loan has a principal amount of $6.85B with another $688M in capitalized interest.
It comes just days after the DOE announced its intent to provide a $6.6B loan to restart development on an electric vehicle facility an hour east of Atlanta. The loan would help Rivan Automotive complete its manufacturing facility, which it paused in March to conserve cash as it looked to prioritize a new model rollout out of an existing plant in Illinois.
The funding announced Monday will help StarPlus develop two previously announced lithium-ion battery cell and module manufacturing plants in Kokomo, Indiana. The plants are expected to produce 67 GWh, enough to power 670,000 vehicles annually, DOE said in the release.
The release also noted that the plants will “greatly expand” North American EV battery manufacturing abilities and reduce the country’s reliance on “adversarial nations like China” and other foreign sourcing of the products.
The plants are expected to create 3,200 construction jobs, up to 2,800 operations jobs at the plants and hundreds more at a nearby supplier park, DOE said. The batteries produced at the facilities will be sold to Stellantis for use in electric vehicles in North America.
Stellantis, the fourth-largest U.S. automaker that owns brands including Jeep and Dodge, has seen declining sales and also announced Sunday that its CEO, Carlos Tavares, is resigning effective immediately, CNBC reported.
The DOE's new funding announcements come less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sworn in. Trump has promised to boost American fossil fuel production to create American “energy dominance” and is expected to veer away from the Biden administration's focus on clean energy.
The incoming president has tapped fossil fuel executive Chris Wright, the CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, to head the DOE.
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