Big money. Bigger promises. All frozen.
GM and Samsung promised Indiana a $3.5 billion battery plant near New Carlisle. The deal was announced three years ago. They talked about nickel-rich prismatic batteries like they were candy. 30 gigawatt-hours of capacity initially. Enough to power 300,00 EVs a year. Later, they bumped it to 36. It was going to be massive.
Now it’s just a skeleton frame in the mud.
Construction stopped. GM admitted as much. Kevin Kelly told the Detroit News the pause aligns capacity with “current demand.” A polite way of saying nobody is buying the cars the batteries go into. The Trump administration killed the $7,500 tax credit. Demand cratered. Automakers hate writing giant checks when the math no longer works.
So what’s next?
For now, they will finish the exterior. Close it up. Keep the birds out. But beyond that shell, nothing is set in stone. The interior sits empty. Waiting.
This isn’t GM’s first exit. Remember Michigan? Late 2024? GM walked away from LG Energy Solution there. They sold their stake for $1 billion. Clean break.
They could do it again here. Pull out of Samsung entirely. Or they stay. Switch gears. Maybe the plant makes lithium-iron phosphate cells instead. Those are cheaper. More common. Less hype, more reality.
The 1,60 jobs are on hold. The money is tied up. The building is half-done.
You can finish the walls. You can’t finish a market that disappeared overnight.
Who is left holding the blueprint now?
