Georgia bet big on EV manufacturing. Trump pulled the plug.

Filed 3h ago · Via Grist · The Buffoon Desk

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Music for Funeral Home - Part 11

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Diplomatic Security Service from Washington, D.C., United St · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Georgia spent years and considerable tax breaks luring EV and battery manufacturers, landing major plants from Hyundai, Kia, Rivian and Blue Bird along with battery makers. The Trump administration then ended federal EV tax credits, added tariffs on battery components, loosened emissions rules and killed the electric government fleet push, all while immigration agents raided a battery plant and arrested more than 400 workers.

Manufacturers are adapting rather than retreating: Kia's West Point plant now builds hybrids alongside EVs to match actual demand, and battery makers are pivoting toward grid storage. More than $4 billion in Southeast investment has been canceled or scaled back, though $74 billion in manufacturing investment is still moving forward.

Georgia, notably, offers no state incentives to encourage residents to actually buy the EVs it is manufacturing, and even charges an extra registration fee on them, leaving industry watchers to wonder whether the state's own drivers will bother.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Georgia built the barn before checking whether anyone still wanted the horse, and Washington changed its mind about horses halfway through construction. The plants are real, the jobs are real, and the whiplash is real too. A state that taxes the very cars it just spent billions luring factories to build has some explaining to do to its own economic development office.

Source: Read the original at Grist → Scored: Music for Funeral Home - Part 11 · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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