Biden awards $1.7B to bring auto manufacturing back to 8 states

The Department of Energy announced $1.7 billion in grant awards today targeted at helping automakers keep 11 troubled manufacturing plants open and to start building EVs there.

The 11 selected plants are sited in 8 states, and have been designated as “shuttered or at-risk” facilities. These plants were either recently shut down by automakers or could have potentially seen job losses soon as automakers plans change.

The grants are part of the “Domestic Conversion Grant Program,” intended to direct government support to help convert plants over to electric vehicle manufacturing.

The money for these grants came from the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed in 2022 with nearly $400 billion in funding for climate-related expenditures, making it the largest climate spending bill ever passed by any country.

But the IRA isn’t just about climate spending, it also intended to support American manufacturing of EVs, hoping to onshore or friend-shore assembly and materials/parts supply for electric vehicles. It included several domestic manufacturing provisions for EVs and subsidies for manufacturers who build them in the US. These provisions have resulted in hundreds of billions in investment and hundreds of thousands of jobs in EV manufacturing-related businesses.

The 11 facilities selected today include plants and suppliers for Hyundai, Blue Bird, Cummins, Fiat-Chrysler, GM, Harley, Volvo, and ZF. These plants are in 8 states – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia. A full list of program rewardees can be found here.

While these plants were selected for awards, the money is still contingent on negotiations to ensure that the companies meet certain goals before grant money is officially transferred.

According to the White House, these grants would “create and retain” tens of thousands of jobs. 2,900 new jobs are expected to be created by these projects, and 15,000 union jobs that would have been lost will be retained by keeping these facilities open.

As with other job packages, these are likely to have additional knock-on effects in the communities these plants are sited in, helping to support non-manufacturing jobs as well.

The White House also says that this advances its “Justice40 Initiative,” which is a commitment that 40% of climate spending will be directed towards disadvantaged communities.

Electrek’s Take

We’ve been impressed by the amount of support that Biden has given to EVs, particularly to domestic manufacturing thereof. While the recent imposition of tariffs was not a good idea, it has at least been supported by significant investments and policy changes which have borne fruit.

These selections today, in particular, are notable, given that the closing of a major manufacturing facility can devastate a community – and that tends to contribute to dissatisfaction and send those communities into the arms of whatever firebrand most loudly offers a scapegoat, whether or not said firebrand actually has any reasonable solutions to the problem (you can guess which firebrand I’m referring to, and the answer to whether he has presented any realistic solutions to any problem is, quite simply, “no”).

Which brings up the point that, unfortunately, we can’t ignore that this is happening in an election year.

Not too long from now, Americans will choose, once again, between a President who has invested into American manufacturing of high-tech vehicles that will be important for the present and future of one of the US’ most important historical industries, and a man who has shown his personal and professional interest in sending those jobs overseas, has asked polluters for bribes to end these measures to support American manufacturing, and whose party has advanced a plan by the name of “Project 2025” that would dismantle environmental protections.

It seems like a pretty clear choice to me.

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