US plans to rev up electric cars hit a battery roadblock
We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
Dismiss
By Steven Mufson
Normal text size
Advertisement
President Joe Biden’s plan to jump-start the US electric vehicle market faces a roadblock: a weak supply chain that is making it difficult for American automakers to get enough batteries to scale up production.
And that shortage could get worse, depending on whether Biden intervenes this week in a dispute between two top South Korean manufacturers over moves by one to open a battery plant in Georgia to serve the US market. Hanging in the balance are plans by Volkswagen and Ford to roll out about 340,000 new electric vehicles over the next several years.
President Joe Biden pledged to make electric vehicles a cornerstone of his climate change plan.
The U.S. International Trade Commission on Wednesday banned one of the worldâs biggest electric vehicle battery manufacturers from selling its cells in the United States, striking  a blow to the Biden administrationâs ambitious plan to electrify the nationâs auto fleet.Â
The decision bars South Korean giant SK Innovation from importing its batteries or the components to make them for 10 years, ruling that the company stole trade secrets from its cross-town rival, LG Energy Solution.Â
The ruling gave the automakers Ford and Volkswagen, which had designed key electric models around the SK Innovation battery, a few years to switch suppliers. But the decision casts a shadow over the future of SK Innovationâs $2.6 billion pair of battery facilities in Jackson County, Georgia, which already started hiring some of the nearly 3,000 workers the Seoul-based firm expec
Updated
Feb 10, 2021
How A Trade Dispute Between 2 Korean Firms Could Jam Bidenâs Electric Car Plans
Trade lawyers call it âthe nuclear option.â South Koreaâs prime minister called it âembarrassing.â The question now is whether Biden will call it unacceptable.
By Alexander C. Kaufman
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
President Joe Biden will have the final say after the U.S. International Trade Commission makes its ruling on Wednesday. It could be the first big test of how serious he is about electric vehicles.
President Joe Biden has vowed to convert the federal governmentâs entire fleet of motor vehicles â some 645,047 at last count â to electric. That includes thousands of Ford F-150 pickups, the countryâs perennial best-selling automobile since 1981 and a popular ride for everyone from federal police to national park rangers.