LG Energy Solution is “adjusting the speed of overall investment” with General Motors in a Michigan electric vehicle battery plant as demand wanes, the latest in a series of recent setbacks for the industry.

The South Korean-based company told Bloomberg News in a Monday text message that LG Energy is “adjusting the speed of overall investment” and “seeking ways for the flexible operation” of its battery plants.

Construction will continue, however, on a $2.6 billion facility with GM that was initially expected to begin operations during the first half of 2025. GM CEO Mary Barra said last week GM won’t reach its previously touted goal of selling one million EVs next year, citing a slowdown in sales, CNBC reports.

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“We won’t get to a million just because the market is not developing, but it will get there,” Barra said. “We’re going to be guided by the customer.”

Aside from slow sales, Korean companies have cited the November election and the potential impact on EV incentives put in place by the Biden administration to encourage EV production, and promises from former President Donald Trump to reverse Biden’s EV policies.

“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one – thereby saving the US auto industry from complete obliteration and saving US customers thousands of dollars per car,” Trump said when he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in Milwaukee last week, Teslarati reports.

LG is among several Korean and American companies taking action amid weakening demand for EVs.

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Samsung SDI Co. CEO Yoonho Choi described the slowdown as “a new crisis” for the company, while SK On Co. declared an emergency after generating a massive loss in the first quarter of 2024, Bloomberg reports.

SDI supplies BMW, Stellantis and GM, while SK On supplies Ford and Hyundai.

LG’s plans to slow investment follows a decision by Ford to scale down its planned $3.5 billion BlueOval Battery Park near Marshall by $1 billion, slashing promised jobs from 2,500 to 1,700. The move prompted Michigan economic officials in mid-July to cut $1.03 billion in taxpayer subsidies for the facility to between $384 million and $409 million, depending on the number of jobs actually created.

“The state was disappointed and, frankly, so was Ford,” Tim Nash, auto expert and director of the McNair Center, told WWMT. “The fact of the matter is, customers are just not buying EVs the way they thought they would.”

Ford’s EV business lost $4.7 billion in 2023, and that trend continued in 2024, with the company reporting a loss of $130,000 on each of the 10,000 EVs it sold in the first quarter, according to the data.

EV sales, meanwhile, continue to decline, despite billions in taxpayer subsidies in Michigan and through the Biden administration.

McNair said an underwhelming 7% of vehicle sold in the U.S. last year were electric, and “this year, the numbers are slowing.”

“We are running on an annualized rate of 6.8%, so that is a decline in electric vehicles overall,” he said.

Other research shows many folks who did buy an EV now regret it.

Last month, McKinsey & Co. released a survey of 30,000 people “who regularly use mobility,” and found 46% of U.S. EV users would likely return to using internal combustion vehicles.

Other headaches for the industry include Michigan EV incentive deals involving nondisclosure agreements with companies tied to the Chinese Communist Party, slave labor in the supply chain, environmental and national security concerns, and public resistance to the government-imposed transition to EVs.

In Michigan, Whitmer plans to have 2 million registered EVs on the road by 2030, but through the first quarter of 2024 registrations had barely cracked 2% of that goal, with a mere 46,792 EV registrations. The situation means Michigan will need to register about 29,000 EVs per month for the next 67 months to fulfill Whitmer’s wishes.

To push things forward, Whitmer and her Democratic allies in the legislature have approved more than $2 billion in business incentives to create 12,000 “good paying jobs.” An analysis by Bridge Michigan in mid-June found that with $1 billion already spent, only about 200 jobs have materialized.

It’s a similar situation on the federal level, with the Biden administration spending billions to prop up the industry, despite a clear majority of Americans opposing the government forced transition to EVs.

A recent EPIC-MRA survey of 600 active and likely voters in the Great Lakes State found 55% disapproved of the government forced, taxpayer funded transition, while 40% approved, and 5% were undecided.

That survey followed another by Marketing Research Group in April that showed only 5% of Michigan voters plan to purchase an EV in the next five years.

“It appears that government and the auto industry are out of sync with Michigan consumers,” said Tom Shields, MRG’s senior advisor. “The state has a long road ahead to reach Governor Whitmer’s goal of 2 million electric vehicles on the roads by 2030.”