What A Difference A Year Makes: Michigan Was "On the Move" with EV Battery Plants, and Then...

This was the MidMichiganNow.com headline on September 26, 2023:

"Michigan is on the move": Governor Whitmer announces dozens of jobs, community investments projects coming to Michigan

And, the story included this bit of bragging:

Samsung SDI America, Inc currently employs 679 Michiganders at its two facilities in Auburn Hills.

The company is looking to double its manufacturing capacity to meet customer needs in the automotive sector and plans to expand its two Auburn Hills facilities, where it will make production line expansions, improvements to employee wellbeing facilities and IT upgrades.

The project is expected to generate a total capital investment of $41 million and create 368 new high-wage jobs with the support of a $5 million Michigan Business Development Program performance-based grant.

Now, fast-forward to three days ago in Crain’s Detroit Business:

Samsung SDI America Inc. plans to lay off 179 workers in Auburn Hills, home to its automotive battery headquarters, where the manufacturer has committed more than $100 million in recent years…

While a cause for the layoffs was not provided, it follows similar actions taken by electric vehicle battery manufacturers as slower-than-expected EV demand meets production overcapacity in Michigan and elsewhere...

It is not clear how many employees will be in Auburn Hills following the layoffs.

Since 2018, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. has awarded the company $15 million in cash grants and approved tax abatements to support expansion. The agency "chose to mutually terminate" its 2023 agreement with Samsung SDI, which called for a $5 million grant, and the company did not receive the funding, according to the MEDC…

Michigan bet big on electrification, emerging as the highest bidder in a North America-wide competition to secure a flurry of battery projects over the past three years. Officials framed the all-in strategy as necessary to preserve a stake in its most important industry. But companies scaling back and delaying factories has invited more criticism toward the state’s $1 billion-plus subsidies for the projects.

Whitmer loves picking winners and losers, but she got it exactly backward in this case. The EV boom is, indeed, ‘on the move’ but not in the direction she hoped. The Big Green Grift is, in fact, crashing.

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