July 11 (UPI) — The White House on Thursday announced a $1.7 billion investment to help automakers increase efforts to produce electric vehicles.
The funding provided under the Inflation Reduction Act can be used for 11 projects connected mostly to retrofitting their plants to produce electric cars and trucks and expanding those EV facilities, with the administration prioritizing operations on the verge of closing or already closed temporarily.
“Building a clean energy economy can and should be a win-win for union autoworkers and automakers,” President Joe Biden said in a White House statement. “This investment will create thousands of good-paying, union manufacturing jobs and retain even more — from Lansing, Mich., to Fort Valley, Ga., — by helping auto companies retool.”
Among those receiving funding were Fiat Chrysler, which will use the money to convert its Illinois Belvidere Assembly Plant, which had previously been idled, and another facility in Indiana to facilities that will produce electric cars.
General Motors will also convert a Lansing, Mich., facility currently making gas-powered vehicles into an EV plant, Volvo will upgrade three facilities to make electric trucks, Harley Davidson will grow its electric motorcycle production and a Hyundai subsidiary will use the finds to produce gas-powered cars and plug-in hybrids while also building a battery system plant.
Biden said the money highlights the administration’s commitment to the manufacturing sector.
“These grants will help ensure the future of the auto industry is made in America by American union workers,” Biden said. “I’ll never stop fighting for the American auto industry and the American autoworker.”
The White House said the projects will create about 2,900 new jobs and prevent the loss of 15,000 more.
“This announcement is a hallmark of the Biden administration’s industrial strategy, which is a strategy to bring manufacturing jobs back to America after years of offshoring,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.
The announcement comes after Biden announced in May that he was quadrupling tariffs on electric vehicles from China to dwarf its greatest EV challenger overseas.