But Can They Thrive in Chaos? EV battery manufacturing capacity will rise when 10 plants come online this year Trump's policies will help to determine if the new plants succeed. Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News Feb 21, 2025 7:15 am | 5 The construction site of BlueOval SKs EV battery manufacturing facility in Stanton, Tenn. Credit: BlueOval SK The construction site of BlueOval SKs EV battery manufacturing facility in Stanton, Tenn. Credit: BlueOval SK Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreThis article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.Ten new electric vehicle battery factories are on track to go online this year in the United States.This includes large plants from global battery giants such as Panasonic, Samsung, and SK On, and automakers such as Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Stellantis, and Toyota.If they all open in 2025, the countrys EV battery manufacturing capacity is poised to grow to 421.5 gigawatt-hours per year, an increase of 90 percent from the end of 2024, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the United Kingdom-based research firm.But this industry is seeing some storm clouds. The Trump administration is taking steps that would reduce demand for EVs. And two battery startupsKore Power and Freyrrecently canceled plans for new US factories.I dont blame anyone who looks at this landscape and wonders if a battery bust is coming. But I see a boom thats still in its early stagesalthough the uncertainty is dialed up to uncomfortable levels.I spoke with analysts this week to get a sense of the significance of the growth and also what factors could undermine the success of the new plants. The great unknown is how far the Trump administration may go to change the laws and rules that provide tax incentives to the plants and support growth of EV market share.Even if the government took action to undo tax credits for battery manufacturing, these plants are too far along in their development to be canceled, said Evan Hartley, a battery industry analyst for Benchmark.Theyre already built, he said. You cant stop it, and the momentum is there. And most of them are in Republican states. Its difficult to take away many thousands of jobs promised to your key voter base.So, whether Trump likes it or not, he is about to preside over a banner year for the United States as a major player in EV batteries, thanks in large part to the policies of his predecessor, Joe Biden.Each of the new plants is a major economic development story for its region.Ill focus on the one closest to where I live in Ohio: LG and Honda have teamed up on a factory in Jeffersonville, Ohio, that will have capacity to build 40 gigawatt-hours of batteries per year and support 2,200 jobs. The projected investment is $4.4 billion. Construction is in the final stages and a spokesperson for the project said battery production will begin late this year.The size of the Honda plant helps to put in perspective the two recently canceled projects.Kore Power, an Idaho-based startup, said a few weeks ago that it was scrapping plans to build a $1.2 billion battery factory in Buckeye, Arizona. One reason was that the company had not finalized a crucial federal loan before Trump took office and froze new grants and loans. Now, the company is shifting its focus to finding an existing building that it can retrofit to produce batteries, as Julian Spector reported for Canary Media.Freyr, which has roots in Norway, has a more complicated story. In recent weeks, it has canceled plans to build a $2.6 billion battery plant in Georgia and is instead focusing on its other major project, a solar panel factory in Texas that it acquired last year. Freyr has named Austin, Texas, as its new corporate headquarters.The news from Kore and Freyr could be used to make an argument that the US battery industry is reeling. But those companies challenges are largely related to being startups, Hartley said.There are a number of roadblocks that you encounter as a battery startup that relate to the actual technical activity involved in making batteries, the kind of scale at which you have to [build] or the scale and precision involved in the manufacturing process, and the fact that its difficult to consistently make high-quality products, he said.I asked Evelina Stoikou, head of battery technology and supply chain research at BloombergNEF, what she sees as the main unanswered questions about the US market for EV batteries.She listed two: First, how will potential changes in federal policy affect automakers, battery makers and consumers? Second, what will the utilization rate of these plants be after they start production?Joint ventures between battery manufacturers and automakers are likely to face more certainty around expected demand due to their integrated supply chains, she said in an email. However, all plants will be influenced by policy decisions, consumer trends, and economic factors.Even before Trump took office, some analysts had raised concerns that the building boom would lead to a battery supply that exceeded demand, at least for a few years. The Trump administration could harm demand even more by revising or eliminating tax credits for consumers buying EVs, among many other possible actions.Its a moment of tremendous uncertainty, said Jay Turner, a Wellesley College environmental studies professor who writes about the shift away from fossil fuels. I do not envy the folks who are trying to make multibillion-dollar decisions, or, you know, tens-of-million-dollar decisions about how to move forward with projects that are in planning or under construction.Trumps tariff policies are also a major source of uncertainty because of their effect on prices for essential materials such as graphite, a battery component that is mainly produced in China.In aggregate, Trumps actions could whittle away the chances that the new battery plants are profitable, which would make it easier for China to dominate the battery and EV industries in the near future.It puts at risk the USs chance to be competitive at global level in an industry thats going to shape the 21st century, Turner said.The new plants of 2025 are an early and important step in a long journey. But their success depends a lot on the subsequent steps.Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News 5 Comments