The White House has given a fillip to the US electric vehicle industry by announcing plans to fund battery production in the company.
The US Department of Energy said it would provide US$3.16bn in aid to assist domestic manufacturers make more batteries in the US and reduce the country’s dependence on manufacturers in places such as Russia, Ukraine and China.
The money provided by the government would be on a dollar-for-dollar matching basis, which is to say that a manufacturer would, say, be expected to invest US$100mln of its own money to get a US$100mln grant from the government.
The funding will be provided under the bipartisan infrastructure law, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
"We need a lot of batteries and we want American workers making those batteries right here in America," said Gina McCarthy, the White House National Climate Adviser.
David Howell, the acting director for the Department of Energy Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains said the department would supporting the establishment of key manufacturing plants across the nation for the high capacity battery supply chain.
“That supply chain that will support electric vehicle battery manufacturing here in the United States and stationary battery manufacturing here in the United States, all the way from processing of extracted materials and refining those materials that are needed for these batteries, like lithium, like cobalt, like nickel, all the way through the supply chain, building out battery materials, production plants, cell production plants, and recycling plants as well,” Howell said.