#1 How a Chinese-Owned Battery-Maker’s Bet on U.S. EVs Went Wro
发表于 ： 2025年 6月 17日 20:38
How a Chinese-Owned Battery-Maker’s Bet on U.S. EVs Went Wrong
Just three years ago, Bowling Green, Ky., was celebrating the largest industrial investment ever made in the city, a new sprawling electric-vehicle battery factory that would create 2,000 jobs.
Today, the building is there. The jobs aren’t.
“A grand opening, a ribbon-cutting—we were supposed to be there at this point,” said Todd Alcott, mayor of the 72,000-person Kentucky city. “We are not there.”
The Chinese-owned company behind the factory quietly stopped working on the $2 billion plant last September, according to current and former employees. Now there is just a massive metal shell of a building with no interior equipment.
Automotive Energy Supply Corp., or AESC, also paused construction earlier this month on a similar $1.6 billion plant in South Carolina. A third plant in Tennessee designed to supply an electric-vehicle factory is now producing industrial energy storage batteries instead.
AESC’s struggles illustrate the ripple effect that slack EV demand and President Trump’s trade war are having throughout the auto industry. Car companies are pulling back on EV investments and costs are rising as a result of tariffs, hurting the financial case for many battery projects.
At the start of the decade, billions of dollars were invested in EV manufacturing across the U.S., with the promise of more than 100,000 jobs.
Now, EV growth has stalled. Republicans are targeting clean-energy subsidies. Emissions regulations that pushed automakers into electrics are being rolled back. And Trump’s tariffs are making it more expensive to equip factories with machinery from China and elsewhere.
“Changes to construction schedules at two facilities in the United States have been driven by deep policy uncertainty affecting cost and supply chains throughout the industry,” an AESC spokesman said. He said AESC remains committed to completing the Kentucky and South Carolina factories and to creating 3,600 jobs between them.
The shifting market dynamics are causing changes across the industry. A Ford Motor battery joint-venture in Kentucky is on ice. Another Ford battery factory in Michigan is also under threat, the company’s chairman said this month. General Motors walked away from a new plant in Michigan, selling its stake to joint-venture partner LG Energy Solution.
Global ambitions
AESC was founded in 2007 as the in-house battery-making arm of Nissan as the Japanese automaker geared up to launch its first EV, the Leaf. In 2018, Nissan sold AESC to Envision Group, a Shanghai-based company founded by Chinese entrepreneur Lei Zhang, who aimed to make Envision into a global green-energy powerhouse.
These days, AESC operates battery plants in France, Japan and Canada, employing more than 10,000 people globally. Its customers include Honda, Nissan and French automaker Renault.
Envision’s 2018 purchase of a controlling stake in AESC gave it a foothold in the U.S. The company assumed ownership of a small plant in Smyrna, Tenn., that made batteries for Nissan.
At an April 2022 press conference to announce the Kentucky factory, AESC predicted an imminent EV boom in the U.S.
Elected officials in Kentucky provided AESC with more than $100 million in state money to help finance the plant. The city of Bowling Green and Warren County spent more than $50 million on real estate for the factory and road and utility work for the industrial park in which it is located, said Alcott, the Bowling Green mayor.
The Biden administration passed a law granting companies such as AESC hefty tax credits for each battery cell and pack made in the U.S.
AESC struck a deal with Mercedes-Benz for its Kentucky plant, and it got another contract with BMW to supply batteries in South Carolina.
Both factories were supposed to start work this year.
In a rush to meet the expected surge in EV manufacturing, AESC started construction and ordered machinery before finalizing the layout of the Kentucky and South Carolina factories, according to current and former employees. Several design changes drove up the construction costs, the people said.
AESC said the factories were within its planned budget.
“With projects of this size and scope industrializing new technology, technical product changes to meet customer and regulatory requirements are not uncommon,” the AESC spokesman said.
At one point, AESC realized the “clean room” at its South Carolina plant would need to accommodate more workers than originally thought, adding millions of dollars in ventilation equipment to ensure the air didn’t contaminate battery components, according to one former executive.
EV slowdown and a trade war
In 2023, a price war erupted in the EV industry and demand slowed.
Mercedes-Benz, which would have been the Kentucky plant’s main customer, told AESC it would make fewer EVs in the U.S. than previously projected, according to former AESC employees. The German company cut its plans even further in 2024, they said.
“The ramp up of battery production capacity has been adjusted to market demand,” said a Mercedes-Benz spokesman.
AESC declined to comment on the size of customer orders but said it is reworking its plan for the facility. At least a portion of the plant now will be dedicated to batteries for energy-storage systems, the company said.
In April, Trump imposed across-the-board tariffs just as AESC was importing manufacturing equipment for South Carolina, creating a massive cost for the company, according to two former executives.
Then, deliveries of equipment to the factory from China and Korea slowed noticeably, a manager at the South Carolina factory said.
This month, an AESC executive notified employees that they were pausing construction citing “economic uncertainty arising from current federal policy and tax issues.”
The battery-maker is attempting to obtain bank loans to complete the South Carolina plant, according to a person familiar with the matter.
AESC’s South Carolina plant is supposed to supply battery cells to BMW. A BMW spokesman said the company remains on track to start making battery packs in 2026 and declined to comment on AESC.
In Kentucky, people around Bowling Green remain hopeful that AESC will still bring 2,000 jobs, said Alcott, the mayor.
“This is going to be a ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach as the world embraces automotive batteries,” he said.
Just three years ago, Bowling Green, Ky., was celebrating the largest industrial investment ever made in the city, a new sprawling electric-vehicle battery factory that would create 2,000 jobs.
Today, the building is there. The jobs aren’t.
“A grand opening, a ribbon-cutting—we were supposed to be there at this point,” said Todd Alcott, mayor of the 72,000-person Kentucky city. “We are not there.”
The Chinese-owned company behind the factory quietly stopped working on the $2 billion plant last September, according to current and former employees. Now there is just a massive metal shell of a building with no interior equipment.
Automotive Energy Supply Corp., or AESC, also paused construction earlier this month on a similar $1.6 billion plant in South Carolina. A third plant in Tennessee designed to supply an electric-vehicle factory is now producing industrial energy storage batteries instead.
AESC’s struggles illustrate the ripple effect that slack EV demand and President Trump’s trade war are having throughout the auto industry. Car companies are pulling back on EV investments and costs are rising as a result of tariffs, hurting the financial case for many battery projects.
At the start of the decade, billions of dollars were invested in EV manufacturing across the U.S., with the promise of more than 100,000 jobs.
Now, EV growth has stalled. Republicans are targeting clean-energy subsidies. Emissions regulations that pushed automakers into electrics are being rolled back. And Trump’s tariffs are making it more expensive to equip factories with machinery from China and elsewhere.
“Changes to construction schedules at two facilities in the United States have been driven by deep policy uncertainty affecting cost and supply chains throughout the industry,” an AESC spokesman said. He said AESC remains committed to completing the Kentucky and South Carolina factories and to creating 3,600 jobs between them.
The shifting market dynamics are causing changes across the industry. A Ford Motor battery joint-venture in Kentucky is on ice. Another Ford battery factory in Michigan is also under threat, the company’s chairman said this month. General Motors walked away from a new plant in Michigan, selling its stake to joint-venture partner LG Energy Solution.
Global ambitions
AESC was founded in 2007 as the in-house battery-making arm of Nissan as the Japanese automaker geared up to launch its first EV, the Leaf. In 2018, Nissan sold AESC to Envision Group, a Shanghai-based company founded by Chinese entrepreneur Lei Zhang, who aimed to make Envision into a global green-energy powerhouse.
These days, AESC operates battery plants in France, Japan and Canada, employing more than 10,000 people globally. Its customers include Honda, Nissan and French automaker Renault.
Envision’s 2018 purchase of a controlling stake in AESC gave it a foothold in the U.S. The company assumed ownership of a small plant in Smyrna, Tenn., that made batteries for Nissan.
At an April 2022 press conference to announce the Kentucky factory, AESC predicted an imminent EV boom in the U.S.
Elected officials in Kentucky provided AESC with more than $100 million in state money to help finance the plant. The city of Bowling Green and Warren County spent more than $50 million on real estate for the factory and road and utility work for the industrial park in which it is located, said Alcott, the Bowling Green mayor.
The Biden administration passed a law granting companies such as AESC hefty tax credits for each battery cell and pack made in the U.S.
AESC struck a deal with Mercedes-Benz for its Kentucky plant, and it got another contract with BMW to supply batteries in South Carolina.
Both factories were supposed to start work this year.
In a rush to meet the expected surge in EV manufacturing, AESC started construction and ordered machinery before finalizing the layout of the Kentucky and South Carolina factories, according to current and former employees. Several design changes drove up the construction costs, the people said.
AESC said the factories were within its planned budget.
“With projects of this size and scope industrializing new technology, technical product changes to meet customer and regulatory requirements are not uncommon,” the AESC spokesman said.
At one point, AESC realized the “clean room” at its South Carolina plant would need to accommodate more workers than originally thought, adding millions of dollars in ventilation equipment to ensure the air didn’t contaminate battery components, according to one former executive.
EV slowdown and a trade war
In 2023, a price war erupted in the EV industry and demand slowed.
Mercedes-Benz, which would have been the Kentucky plant’s main customer, told AESC it would make fewer EVs in the U.S. than previously projected, according to former AESC employees. The German company cut its plans even further in 2024, they said.
“The ramp up of battery production capacity has been adjusted to market demand,” said a Mercedes-Benz spokesman.
AESC declined to comment on the size of customer orders but said it is reworking its plan for the facility. At least a portion of the plant now will be dedicated to batteries for energy-storage systems, the company said.
In April, Trump imposed across-the-board tariffs just as AESC was importing manufacturing equipment for South Carolina, creating a massive cost for the company, according to two former executives.
Then, deliveries of equipment to the factory from China and Korea slowed noticeably, a manager at the South Carolina factory said.
This month, an AESC executive notified employees that they were pausing construction citing “economic uncertainty arising from current federal policy and tax issues.”
The battery-maker is attempting to obtain bank loans to complete the South Carolina plant, according to a person familiar with the matter.
AESC’s South Carolina plant is supposed to supply battery cells to BMW. A BMW spokesman said the company remains on track to start making battery packs in 2026 and declined to comment on AESC.
In Kentucky, people around Bowling Green remain hopeful that AESC will still bring 2,000 jobs, said Alcott, the mayor.
“This is going to be a ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach as the world embraces automotive batteries,” he said.