New Carlisle area chosen for large battery making plant

BY STAN MADDUX

Amore than $3 billion electric vehicle battery making plant employing well over 1,000 people is going to be constructed outside New Carlisle.

The announcement Tuesday, June 13, by Governor Eric Holcomb ends more than a year of suspense on whether it was going to be constructed there.

“This historic investment is further proof that Indiana has turned it up and shifted into higher gear when it comes to helping create the future of mobility and more customer options out on the open road,” Holcomb said.

Construction of the new facility containing three million square feet of space is expected to begin within the next year.

The goal is for the plant with a projected workforce of 1,600 to 1,700 to be operating in 2026.

The facility becoming reality stems from a partnership in April between General Motors and Samsung.

Originally, General Motors teamed up with LG Energy Solution on a slightly smaller proposed electric vehicle making plant employing a similar amount of people.

The same close to 700 acre site consisting of farmland along Indiana 2 southeast of New Carlisle was in the running for the plant until LG Energy Solution broke from the partnership last year.

The plans came back to life when GM and Samsung later joined hands in the slightly revised venture.

The facility will house production lines to build nickel-rich prismatic and cylindrical cells for millions of allelectric vehicles for customers across North America.

The plant is expected to be a major help in making electric vehicles more accessible and affordable.

“Securing Indiana as a strong foothold together with GM, Samsung SDI will supply products featuring the highest level of safety and quality in a bed to help the U.S. move forward to an era of electric vehicles,” said Yoonho Choi, president and CEO of Samsung SDI.

The announcement came about three weeks after the St. Joseph County Council unanimously approved tax abatement on the project.

St. Joseph County Commissioner Carl Baxmeyer said the project will impact the region for decades.

He also called it “the largest single investment and job commitment in St. Joseph County in the last 75 years.”

GM already has five facilities across the state, including one in Marion that’s going to be expanded and upgraded at a cost of nearly $500 million to support automaker’s growing electric vehicle production.

Officials in neighboring La Porte County expecting benefits to the local economy from the plant seemed happy with the decision.

Matt Reardon of the Center for Economic Development, Planning and Government Affairs for La Porte County said a percentage of the workforce will almost certainly be from the La Porte area.

He said that means additional money coming back in wages and county income tax dollars paid on those earnings.

Reardon also said local contractors may be involved in the construction while some of the materials needed for operating the plant could be from local suppliers.

“That’s always a good thing,” he said.

Bert Cook, executive director of the La Porte Economic Advancement Partnership, said another benefit could be higher demand for new housing and workers at the plant moving here to be closer to their jobs.

“Anytime neighboring communities have success like that I think it has spillover positive effects in all of the other communities that are near and we are obviously very close. I think there will be some really great impacts created here.”

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