New Carlisle battery plant on pace despite EV demand concerns
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As industry leaders say demand for electric vehicles has slowed, one northern Indiana official says construction of the $3 billion electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant in New Carlisle is on schedule.
St. Joseph County Economic Development Director Bill Schalliol told our partners at Fox Michiana that General Motors is committed to completing the project.
Last June, GM and South Korea-based Samsung SDI announced New Carlisle as the site for the project, which is expected to create 1,700 manufacturing jobs.
Schalliol said while construction is generally slower in the winter months, early site work is continuing on the facility.
“We will see contractors out on site over the next couple of weeks starting to do waterline installation, some fiber optic relocation,” Schalliol told Fox Michiana. “There is a lot of site work happening in and around the site, you know, in anticipation preparation for the project.”
Schalliol noted that the New Carlisle plant will be producing cylindrical and prismatic batteries, rather than the pouch batteries that are currently being made at GM’s three other facilities as part of its Ultium Cells joint venture with LG Energy Solution.
“So, they’ll have products coming online out of those other three facilities this year,” he said. “So, as they start to ramp up and put those into vehicles, you know, timeline wise, it hits perfectly that 2026 and 27 or eight, they’ve got a new product to put in some of the other vehicles.”
In a letter to shareholders last month, GM CEO Mary Barra said the automaker expects to see profit in its U.S. EV portfolio in the second half of the year.
“It’s true the pace of EV growth has slowed, which has created some uncertainty,” Barra said. “But many third-party forecasts have U.S. EV deliveries rising from about 7% of the industry in 2023 to at least 10% in 2024, which would mean another year of record EV sales.”
Schalliol emphasized that work on the New Carlisle plant is on track for its expected completion in December 2027.