Biden’s EV push

Ford taps the brakes on Biden’s EV push

By ARIANNA SKIBELL

Ford has hit pause on building an electric vehicle battery plant in Michigan, adding fuel to the larger political and economic battle over President Joe Biden’s climate goals.

The $3.5 billion facility would be the first to manufacture next-gen lithium, iron and phosphate batteries on U.S. soil — a major boon for Biden’s twin goals of slashing planet-warming pollution and boosting domestic manufacturing. It would also employ some 2,500 unionized workers — a key feature for a labor-friendly president.

Ford’s decision to halt work on the plant comes as the United Auto Workers approaches week three of its strike against the company, along with General Motors and Stellantis. Auto workers are demanding higher wages to make up for years of employee concessions to management, amid a shift to EVs that threatens a long-term erosion of UAW jobs.

The union characterized the pause as a “shameful, barely veiled threat by Ford to cut jobs,” writes Hannah Northey.

“Closing 65 plants over the last 20 years wasn’t enough for the Big Three, now they want to threaten us with closing plants that aren’t even open yet,” UAW President Shawn Fain said.

The facility also looms large in Republican messaging against Biden’s green agenda. GOP lawmakers object to Ford’s plan to use Chinese battery technology, and many are calling for a permanent cancellation of the plant, write James Bikales and Kelsey Tamborrino. So are some residents of Marshall, Mich., who launched a lawsuit to halt the facility earlier this year, citing potential environmental impacts to the Kalamazoo River.

But why?

Ford stopped short of offering a concrete reason for the pause, but said work on the facility would resume when company leadership is confident in “our ability to competitively operate the plant.”

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office tied the move to the UAW strike.

“Ford has been clear that this is a pause, and we hope negotiations between the Big 3 and UAW will be successful so that Michiganders can get back to work doing what they do best,” Whitmer’s press secretary Stacey LaRouche said.

Today, Biden joined a group of striking autoworkers on a picket line in Michigan, telling them through a megaphone that they “deserve a significant raise.”