New York CNN –
Stellantis and Samsung plan to build a second electric vehicle battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana, a city where many current Stellantis employees view such facilities as a threat to their current jobs.
Electric vehicle battery factories are a crucial part of traditional automakers’ plans to transition from gasoline-powered cars to electric vehicles in the coming decades. However, they could pose a threat to existing engine and transmission manufacturing jobs that are not needed in an electric vehicle. Stellantis has four engine and transmission manufacturing plants in Kokomo alone, employing a total of more than 5,000 hourly workers.
Stellantis, which builds Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler cars along with unionized rivals General Motors and Ford, is now in its fourth week of a strike by the United Auto Workers union, and the future of jobs is building electric vehicles poor central theme of the strike.
While the four Kokomo plants are not striking, the union is striking at the Stellantis assembly complex in Toledo, Ohio, and at 20 parts and distribution centers in 14 states.
All automakers are in the process of building electric vehicle battery factories, and all are using joint ventures with battery makers like Samsung to build and operate the factories. They have all insisted that employees at the plants become employees of the joint ventures, rather than the automakers themselves. And pay at the electric vehicle battery plants that have opened in the U.S. so far is a fraction of what UAW members receive when they work for the car manufacturers.
UAW President Shawn Fain announced Friday that GM had agreed to a key union demand that employees at its electric vehicle battery plants be included in the company’s national master labor agreement with the UAW. GM has not confirmed that agreement, and details about how much those workers would be paid and whether they would be considered GM employees or covered by the agreement as employees of various companies are not yet known.
But Fain hailed that agreement as a major victory for the union and said she would now push Ford and Stellantis to agree to similar terms if they want to end the strike.
Following this announcement, Samsung and Stellantis announced plans for their latest battery plant.
The two companies announced Wednesday that they are investing more than $3.2 billion to build the new power plant, which is scheduled to open in early 2027 and will have an annual capacity of 34 gigawatt hours. The opening will create about 1,400 new jobs in Kokomo, which is an hour north of Indianapolis.
StarPlus Energy, the joint venture founded by Samsung and Stellantis, previously chose Kokomo for its first gigafactory, which is currently under construction and scheduled to open in 2025.
In total, the two factories will produce 67 gigawatt hours annually. “Indiana’s economy is on the rise,” Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said in a news release, adding that the second plant means companies are doubling their capital investments and doubling the number of new jobs created.
The factories will help Stellantis reach its goal of battery-electric passenger vehicles accounting for 100% of its sales in Europe and 50% of its sales in the U.S. by 2030. Stellantis announced an “aggressive” $35 billion investment in 2021 electric vehicle production and needs 400 gigawatt hours annually to reach its 2030 target.
Stellantis was created in 2021 through the merger of Fiat Chrysler and the PSA Group, manufacturer of Peugeot, Citroën, Opel and Vauxhall cars in Europe. Shares rose nearly 2% in premarket trading.