General Motors delays Samsung SDI battery factory by one year

General Motors is delaying its jointly-run electric vehicle factory with Samsung SDI by one year, a move that shows another legacy automaker tempering their expectations as the U.S. EV market seems to be derailed by consumer interest in hybrids.

GM and Samsung SDI said on Tuesday that they would still build the factory, slated to be located in New Carlisle, Indiana, but it will now be ready to produce battery cells in 2027 instead of 2026.

The reasons for the delay are “market conditions and contract details,” GM said.

Market Conditions

Several automakers have admitted that the consumer interest trends have pointed in the direction of hybrid electric vehicles and not pure EVs. Ford recently announced that it would push its EV plans back and would instead focus on building out more hybrids in the coming years. It will still build EVs, including a new, all-electric pickup, but it won’t come until the latter half of the decade.

Tesla also said that hybrids are becoming the focus of many carmakers, especially as consumers have been buying them more frequently.

We are seeing more legacy car companies adjust their strategies to line up with what consumers are buying, and while EVs are still a good seller with a 7 percent increase in sales in the first half of 2024, their products are not necessarily on par with those of Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid.

Hyundai has performed well, as their Kia and Genesis siblings accounted for 10 percent of the EV market share in the U.S. in the first half of the year.

Hyundai Motor Group closes the gap with Tesla 

Contract Details

GM and Samsiung SDI will employ 1,600 workers, and while it did not go into too much detail regarding what the hold up is with contracts or employee terms.

However, the UAW said it would include the new plant and its workers in negotiations last October. Workers at the plant need to agree in majority or need a card check to unionize the plant.

More than likely, Samsung SDI needs to have talks with the UAW and workers before it is decided whether the plant will become unionized when it becomes operational.

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