EV battery manufacturing capacity will rise when 10 plants come online this year

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Ten new electric vehicle battery factories are on track to go online this year in the United States.

This includes large plants from global battery giants such as Panasonic, Samsung, and SK On, and automakers such as Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Stellantis, and Toyota.

If they all open in 2025, the country’s EV battery manufacturing capacity is poised to grow to 421.5 gigawatt-hours per year, an increase of 90 percent from the end of 2024, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the United Kingdom-based research firm.

But this industry is seeing some storm clouds. The Trump administration is taking steps that would reduce demand for EVs. And two battery startups—Kore Power and Freyr—recently canceled plans for new US factories.

I don’t blame anyone who looks at this landscape and wonders if a battery bust is coming. But I see a boom that’s still in its early stages—although the uncertainty is dialed up to uncomfortable levels.

I spoke with analysts this week to get a sense of the significance of the growth and also what factors could undermine the success of the new plants. The great unknown is how far the Trump administration may go to change the laws and rules that provide tax incentives to the plants and support growth of EV market share.

Even if the government took action to undo tax credits for battery manufacturing, these plants are too far along in their development to be canceled, said Evan Hartley, a battery industry analyst for Benchmark.

“They’re already built,” he said. “You can’t stop it, and the momentum is there. And most of them are in Republican states. It’s difficult to take away many thousands of jobs promised to your key voter base.”

So, whether Trump likes it or not, he is about to preside over a banner year for the United States as a major player in EV batteries, thanks in large part to the policies of his predecessor, Joe Biden.