Ford Motor Co. halted construction of a $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery plant near Kalamazoo, Michigan, amid an ongoing strike by the United Auto Workers.
The automaker shut down the project on Monday and is “limiting spending on construction until we’re confident that we’ll be able to competitively operate the plant,” spokesman T.R. Reid said in an emailed statement to CoStar News. Reid did not specifically cite the UAW strike as the reason for the construction pause.
The labor union went on strike on Sept. 15 at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne and at General Motors and Stellantis automotive factories, protesting the automakers’ salary proposals for union workers and other benefits ahead of upcoming contract negotiations.
Ford, General Motors, Toyota and other large automakers are developing new manufacturing facilities for electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries. President Biden set a goal for half of new car sales to be electric by 2030, and corporations and advocacy groups are pushing for the shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles to combat climate change.
The Ford EV battery plant under construction in Marshall, Michigan, is located on 245 acres about 30 miles east of Kalamazoo. The factory is expected to employ 2,500 workers and was initially projected to open in 2026. Ford did not provide an update on the construction timetable as a result of the work stoppage.
Ford’s construction shutdown in Marshall is “a shameful, barely veiled threat by Ford to cut jobs," Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, said in a statement.
“Closing 65 plants over the last 20 years wasn’t enough for” Ford, GM and Stellantis, Fain said. “Now they want to threaten us with closing plants that aren’t even open yet.”
Ford is proceeding with a $11.4 billion project to construct electric vehicle and battery plants in Kentucky and Tennessee.
GM and Stellantis had not announced any stoppages in EV plant construction projects as of Tuesday morning. GM and partner LG Energy have new factory developments underway in Lansing, Michigan; Warren, Ohio; and Spring Hill, Tennessee. Meanwhile, Stellantis and partner LG Energy are developing a battery plant in Windsor, Ontario. Stellantis is also working with Samsung to construct an EV battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana.