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Biden Offers $1.7 Billion to Help Factories Build Electric Vehicles

A Jeep plant that closed last year will be among those that will benefit from federal grants meant to help automotive manufacturers and protect jobs.

Biden Offers $1.7 Billion to Help Factories Build Electric Vehicles

The federal government will grant car and auto parts factories in eight states $1.7 billion to begin producing electric vehicles and other clean energy technology, the Biden administration announced on Thursday.


Among the 11 recipients will be a Jeep factory in Belvidere, Ill., that the brand’s parent company Stellantis closed last year. The money will allow the plant to reopen and produce electric vehicles, officials said, restoring almost 1,450 jobs.


Other beneficiaries include a factory in Georgia that plans to make Blue Bird electric school buses, a General Motors factory in Michigan that will shift production from gasoline to electric vehicles, and a Harley-Davidson factory in Pennsylvania that will increase production of electric motorcycles.


The funding helps to address fears that electric vehicles will endanger jobs at factories that make gasoline-powered vehicles or parts for internal combustion engines as the industry shifts to E.V.s. To qualify for the money, companies had to commit to retraining their existing workers.


Employees at all of the factories chosen are represented by unions. Officials said they gave priority to communities that suffered disproportionately from pollution or lack of investment.


Several of the factories are in Pennsylvania, Michigan or Georgia, states where narrow margins will determine the outcome of the presidential election. President Biden, in a statement, sought to contrast his industrial policies with those of former President Donald J. Trump.


“This delivers on my commitment to never give up on the manufacturing communities and workers that were left behind by my predecessor,” Mr. Biden said.


The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


The funds will preserve 15,000 jobs and create almost 3,000 new ones, Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, said on a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. In a reference to China, she said the money will allow the United States to “compete with other countries who were subsidizing their auto industries.”


The awards will draw on funds allocated by the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Democrats in Congress in 2022. The legislation provided subsidies that have fed a boom in construction of electric vehicle factories and battery plants.



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