The Biden administration introduced $1.7 billion in funding to transform endangered or closed factories into electrical automobile manufacturing amenities.
Eleven auto crops in eight states which can be at the moment closed or liable to closure will obtain the funding to revamp their electrical automobile manufacturing operations, administration officers mentioned in a convention name with reporters. The White Home mentioned the sorts of merchandise the crops will produce embrace “electrical motorbike and college bus elements, hybrid programs, heavy-duty business truck batteries and electrical SUVs.”
“Constructing a clear vitality financial system can and ought to be a win-win for union autoworkers and automakers,” President Joe Biden mentioned in a press release. “This funding will create hundreds of high-paying union manufacturing jobs and retain many extra by serving to auto corporations retool, restart and rehire in the identical factories and communities – from Lansing, Michigan to Georgia. State valley fort.
“This funding will create hundreds of high-paying union manufacturing jobs”
The funding is a part of a $15.5 billion plan introduced by the Vitality Division late final yr to transform current manufacturing amenities into electrical and clear automobile meeting operations. The funding was permitted as a part of the Inflation Discount Act of 2022, President Biden’s landmark local weather laws.
Among the crops that will likely be transformed embrace an idle Stellantis plant in Belvedere, Illinois, which will likely be transformed into an electrical automobile meeting plant utilizing a $334 million grant. (Stellantis and the United Auto Employees introduced an settlement to reopen the plant earlier this yr.) Stellantis may even obtain an extra $250 million to renovate its transmission plant in Kokomo, Indiana, for manufacturing Electrical drive module.
Basic Motors will obtain $500 million to remodel its 25-year-old plant in Lansing, Michigan, into producing electrical fashions. Harley-Davidson’s manufacturing facility in York, Pennsylvania, will price $89 million to change into an electrical motorbike meeting plant. Blue Hen, which makes college buses, will obtain $79 million to improve a 600,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Fort Valley, Georgia, to make electrical buses.
Officers mentioned one of many stipulations for the grant is that the cash be used to retain and create new union jobs within the auto business. In his assertion, Biden made clear that the awards “will assist be sure that the way forward for the auto business is in-built America by American union staff.” The UAW helps Biden in his re-election marketing campaign.
The president has made electrical automobiles a centerpiece of his local weather platform, authorizing billions of {dollars} in new spending for client incentives for automobile buyers and the set up of charging stations. Former President Donald Trump promised to halt spending on electrical automobiles if Biden wins in November, and Home Republicans have handed a number of payments to repeal the federal government’s electrical automobile tax credit score program.
