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More U.S. electric vehicle manufacturing plants were cancelled in the first three months of 2025 than in 2023 and 2024 combined (The Washington Post, subscription). 
 
What’s going on: In recent years, “manufacturing facilities producing lithium batteries, car parts and critical minerals sprang up all over the United States,” drawing on strategic energy incentives. They “promised to provide jobs … and to set the nation on a path to making homegrown EVs.”  

• But there is uncertainty surrounding the fate of the energy incentives as Republicans in Congress debate provisions for their tax bill.
• The Trump administration is also moving to reverse a tailpipe emissions rule finalized by the previous administration, which was designed to push consumers toward buying EVs. A new GOP-led tax bill that aims to repeal many of those energy incentives could slash U.S. EV sales by 40% in 2030, according to a recent Princeton University report.
• Billions of dollars’ worth of contracts to build factories have been canceled, and hundreds of millions of dollars in additional investments “appear to be stalled,” Atlas Public Policy Senior Policy Analyst Tom Taylor told the Post.  

The details: In February, Aspen Aerogels said it was canceling a planned $1 billion Georgia factory to build thermal barriers for batteries “and shifting manufacturing to an existing U.S. factory and to Mexico and China.”  

• Another company, KORE Power—which in 2023 had received conditional loan approval for $850 million to construct a battery facility in Arizona—said it would abandon those plans and retrofit an existing facility instead.
• Even those EV projects that are continuing “are downplaying or reducing the role of all-electric vehicles,” and fewer new factories are starting production.   

The former trajectory: “Before the closures, the United States was on track to produce almost all the batteries needed for the country’s electric cars and trucks by 2030, according to an analysis from research firm Rhodium Group.”  
 
The NAM says: “While the NAM supports policies that promote robust consumer choice in the automobile industry, the fact that job-creating manufacturing investments are being canceled is very unfortunate,” said NAM Vice President of Domestic Policy Chris Phalen.

• “Strategic energy incentives play an important role in getting new technologies to market, especially as China seeks to cement its chokehold on mineral supply chains and advanced energy manufacturing. The incentives are critical to boosting domestic supply chains, achieving energy dominance across all forms of energy and helping the U.S. compete with China.”