Ford Will Keep Battery Factory Even If Republicans Ax Tax Break

Summary

Ford Motor said on Monday that it was committed to completing and opening a battery plant in Michigan, even if Congress and President Trump make the project ineligible for tax incentives.The $3 billion plant, in Marshall, Mich., 100 miles west of Detroit, uses battery and manufacturing technology that Ford licensed from a Chinese company, Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd., known as CATL.Ford decided to build the factory two years ago under the expectation that a portion of the cost would be offset by federal tax credits provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s signature energy and climate change legislation.But Republicans in Congress are working on a policy bill that could bar federal support for battery plants that use Chinese technology or materials. Mr. Trump has supported that effort and sharply criticized Democratic efforts to encourage the use and production of electric vehicles.At a tour of the factory on Monday, Lisa Drake, Ford’s vice president for technology platform programs and E.V. systems, said the company would move ahead even if such restrictions were signed into law.“We don’t want to back off on this facility,” Ms. Drake told reporters. “When we invest, we stick behind our investments. Ford is a company that will weather the storm until we get there.”Separately on Monday, a senior official of the United Automobile Workers union said eliminating the tax credits related to electric vehicles would hurt manufacturing workers.“Analysis suggests that repealing clean vehicle tax credits alone could reduce electric vehicle (E.V.) sales as much as 40 percent by 2030, and could result in the idling of existing assembly plants and the cancellation of many planned E.V. battery manufacturing facilities,” Dave Green, the director of the U.A.W. region covering Ohio and Indiana, said in an essay published in The Ohio Capital Journal.“The irony is stark and painful: thousands of battery workers have just voted to unionize, ...