The president and other Republicans have touted their anti-EV policies as a victory for consumer choice. Trump wanted to reverse rules that he said would force Americans to buy electric cars, or what he calls an “EV mandate.” Under Biden, automakers would have needed roughly half of their sales to be EVs by the early 2030s, although there was no looming ban on combustion-engine cars. Trump has repeatedly called for expanding U.S. oil-and-gas production.
Automakers have offered some hope to laid-off battery-plant workers for reasons that have nothing to do with EV demand or Trump’s auto policy – there is burgeoning appetite for energy-storage batteries, driven by the boom in AI and data-center construction. Ford, GM and their joint-venture partners, for example, have said they plan to convert some portion of their underused EV factories to produce storage.
Still, it can take months or years for automakers to switch plants equipped to make EV batteries to those for storage, which often requires a different chemistry. And demand for storage batteries isn’t expected to come close to utilizing dormant factory space intended for EVs.
Lordstown residents are used to weathering the booms and busts of the car business. A GM assembly plant was one of the region’s economic engines for more than 50 years, before it closed in 2019. The area is a well-worn campaign-trail stop: Trump, Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Mike Pence all have visited, offering recipes for reviving jobs and prosperity.
At a 2017 rally a short drive from Lordstown, a freshly elected Trump assured the crowd that manufacturing jobs were coming back: “Don’t move. Don’t sell your house.” When GM about a year later signaled its plan to close its assembly plant, after a long period of declining employment, Trump publicly harangued CEO Mary Barra to save jobs in the area. That contributed to GM’s decision to locate the battery plant here, three people with knowledge of the decision told Reuters.
In 2022, the GM-LG battery factory opened within a few minutes’ drive of the shuttered vehicle facility. About 1,300 people went to work making battery cells for EVs. People started calling the area “Voltage Valley” instead of its historic Steel Valley nickname.
But by the summer of 2025, employees were spending their days doing busy work, like cleaning their workstations, rather than making battery cells, Baier said. When the layoff announcement landed in October, Ultium, the GM-LG joint venture, signaled a return-to-work timeline of six months. That was extended because of weak EV demand following the expiration of the tax credit.
Ultium in recent weeks brought back about 700 laid-off factory workers, and resumed battery cell production in mid-August. About 600 remain on indefinite layoff, the company said.
In statements to Reuters, GM and Ultium didn’t directly address the impact of Trump's policies on their EV investment. GM said it is "continuing to advance EVs" and still sells a dozen EV models in the U.S. LG Energy Solution acknowledged a slowdown in EV demand following the expiration of subsidies but said it views electrification as a long-term prospect.
Many EV and battery projects sprang up in struggling places that Trump has vowed to revitalize through factory investment.
In tiny Glendale, Kentucky, two austere white structures jut up from surrounding farmlands. The battery plants were built early this decade by Ford and its former partner, South Korea’s SK On, and operated by their joint venture, BlueOval SK.
For Rick Games, 72, the former head of the Elizabethtown-Hardin County Industrial Foundation, an economic development agency, the buildings reflect two decades of painstaking work promoting the site to dozens of prospective buyers, including Hyundai.
By 2020, automaker interest in this patch of farmland an hour south of Louisville – with its ample electricity and highway access – reached a fever pitch. “Good Lord, they were coming out of the woodwork,” said Games.
In 2021, Ford and SK agreed to sink $5.8 billion into a site the size of 1,100 football fields. It was the largest single investment in Kentucky’s history, and promised 5,000 new jobs. It also was part of Ford’s biggest-ever manufacturing project, combined with a factory 300 miles away in Tennessee.
Officials in Glendale – population 2,000 – and the surrounding area raced to prepare for an expected influx of more than 20,000 new residents. Roads would be widened to accommodate construction trucks. Developers planned thousands of homes.
Ford and SK launched a hiring spree. Bill Wilmoth had recently moved back to the area. He started work at the Glendale battery plant in June 2024, making $21 an hour.
In mid-December 2025, Wilmoth and other workers were told to stay home, where he watched a management video sharing the news that about 1,500 of them were being laid off. “My heart dropped a little bit,” he said.
In response to Reuters questions, Ford didn’t detail the impact of the Trump administration’s policy changes on its EV manufacturing. It said it plans to hire 2,100 workers at Glendale – less than half the originally estimated workforce – to produce energy-storage batteries, beginning in late 2027.
Ford said it’s “prioritizing affordability, choice and profits” by investing across gas-engine, hybrid and EV models. The company said it added 1,500 factory jobs in the year ending in July, and that it plans to launch a new electric pickup truck, the Fathom, at its plant in Louisville.
Representatives for SK On and the now-dissolved BlueOval SK declined to comment about the job losses at Glendale.
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