EV Battery Component Maker Cancels $325M Georgia Plant

Producer Aspen Aerogels Inc. canceled plans to assemble a $325-million plant in Statesboro, Ga., it advised traders Feb. 12. Donald Younger, CEO of the Northborough, Mass.-based firm, says it can as an alternative give attention to “maximizing capability” at its present manufacturing plant in Rhode Island.

Aspen had deliberate to provide thermal boundaries for electrical automobile batteries on the 500,000-sq-ft plant on a 90-acre web site in southeast Georgia. New York-based Turner Building Co. was the contractor. A Turner consultant didn’t instantly reply to an emailed inquiry on Presidents Day. 

“We’re taking decisive actions to navigate an evolving surroundings,” Younger stated throughout a name with traders.

Aspen will relocate some gear from the canceled challenge to improve and develop the Rhode Island plant, based on the corporate. 

The announcement comes after automakers reported slower-than-expected EV demand and because the administration of Pres. Donald Trump pulls again Biden-era insurance policies that supported EVs. One in every of Trump’s government orders on the primary day of his new time period revoked a 2021 Biden order that set a non-binding purpose of getting EVs account for half of latest automobiles offered within the U.S. by 2030. And a Feb. 6 Federal Freeway Administration memo knowledgeable state transportation officers that it was suspending a $5-billion program offering funding for EV chargers. 

Aspen had beforehand deliberate to open the plant in 2024, however executives later advised traders that that they had been capable of contract out for some materials, permitting for a later begin of plant operations. Now it says it could possibly meet long-term demand by increasing capability at its East Windfall, R.I., plant and counting on exterior manufacturing as wanted. 

“In early 2023, pre-empting a reset in EV demand expectations, we determined to right-time the development of our deliberate second aerogel manufacturing facility in Statesboro, Georgia, and subsequently ramped up our exterior manufacturing capability for our power industrial enterprise,” stated Ricardo Rodriguez, CFO and treasurer at Aspen, in a press release. 

Aspen just isn’t the one firm to not too long ago name off a plant challenge in Georgia. In late January, photo voltaic and battery storage producer Freyr Battery additionally canceled its $2.6-billion challenge in Coweta County, Ga.