General Motors continues to build its Ultium Cells battery plant near Lansing as the automotive industry confronts slower-than-expected electric vehicle sales and high capital costs to build them. As it cuts costs, GM is pausing construction at its Orion Township Assembly factory, which was paired with the Ultium factory for over $600 million in state economic development incentives.

Long-awaited guidance from the US Treasury Department that could prevent automakers from buying materials from China will likely resemble regulations aimed at protecting the US semiconductor industry, industry experts told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

ENERGYWIRE | The news that big auto companies like General Motors and Ford Motor are slowing their electric vehicle rollouts has one group a bit relieved: battery-makers.

This nascent U.S. industry has received $58 billion of investment in the year since the Inflation Reduction Act became law, according to Jay Turner, a professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts who maintains an EV-investment database. That’s far more than any other part of the EV ecosystem. People in the industry say they could use a break from this red-hot streak to catch their breath.

A group of domestic battery stakeholders is also banding together to try and make sure that in all the attention being paid to investing in sustainable supply chains for critical minerals and other materials that go into making batteries, investing in domestic production of the machinery that manufacturers batteries doesn’t fall by the wayside.

— U.S. Battery Machine Builders includes Abbott Furnace, Bechtel Global Corporation, BW Papersystems, Charles Ross & Son Company and Siemens, and argues that a focus on onshoring equipment for everything from extracting critical minerals to assembling batteries will accomplish the same sustainability, economic and national security objectives cited in focusing on the supply chain for the raw materials themselves.