The Biden administration on Wednesday awarded $2.8 billion in grants to boost domestic manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles in 12 states. A total of 20 companies will receive grants for projects to extract and process lithium, graphite, and other battery materials, manufacture components, and strengthen US supply of critical minerals, officials said. The administration wants to boost production and sales of electric vehicles as a key part of President Biden's strategy to slow climate change and build up US manufacturing, the AP reports. Biden has vowed to boost production of lithium and other critical minerals, and the sweeping climate and health care law passed in August includes provisions to boost electric vehicles, including tax credits for EV buyers worth up to $7,500.
"This is critically important, because the future of vehicles is electric," Biden said at a White House event Wednesday with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and executives from 10 grant recipients. The business leaders appeared virtually on a large screen in a White House auditorium. "Right now, 75% of battery manufacturing is done in China," he said, adding that part of the battery market was taken with the help of unfair trade practices and subsidies. Ryan Melsert, CEO of American Battery Technology Co. in Reno, Nevada, told Biden that US intervention in the battery market was overdue. "Unfortunately, the US is almost a non-player in the lithium game," Melsert said, noting that less than 1% of lithium products globally are made in the US.
In a separate development, German automaker BMW said Wednesday it will invest $1 billion in its factory near Spartanburg, South Carolina, to start building electric vehicles and an additional $700 million to build a battery plant nearby. The federal grants announced Wednesday are funded by last year's $1 trillion infrastructure law and are separate from an executive order Biden issued last spring invoking the Defense Production Act to boost production of lithium and other critical minerals used to power electric vehicles. Albemarle Corp., Piedmont Lithium Inc., Entek, and Syrah Technologies are among 20 companies that won Energy Department grants to help fund projects in at least 12 states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington state. Katherine García of the Sierra Club applauded the administration's action, which she said will cut vehicle pollution.
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