Granholm, Kaptur, Kapszukiewicz tout federal support for EV parts manufacturer

Standing in a Toledo factory operated by a subsidiary of Korean automaker Hyundai, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm Friday touted a $32.6 million federal grant to Mobis and American Autoparts to facilitate the production of battery casings and base plates for electric and hybrid vehicles.

“Automobile manufacturing is an iconic American industry that defined American might for over 100 years,” Ms. Granholm said. “Then other countries lured manufacturers away while the federal government sat on its hands. State-level incentives were like bringing a knife to a gunfight, especially when you’re competing with China. Without federal help, we were losing. We felt the pain of globalization for years. But the world has changed again because your government is finally doing something about it.”

Funding for the grant comes from a $1.7 billion federal initiative known as Investing in America. The program supports the auto and auto parts industries as they retool to manufacture electric and hybrid vehicles. Mobis is one of nine companies that will receive grants to convert their factories for EV production.

The parts that the new Mobis facility is expected to manufacture include the enclosures that hold the batteries that power electric and hybrid vehicles. The enclosures are designed to keep the batteries at optimal temperature in all conditions.

Mobis’ Toledo facility was built on Skyview Drive at a site that used to be the location of the North Towne Mall. Today the development is called the Toledo Trade Center.

“Successful cities reinvent themselves,” Toledo Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said as the federal grant was announced. “Toledo makes things. It’s a false narrative that Toledo is part of the past. We can still build things.”

The mayor announced that two more buildings were being planned for the Toledo Trade Center site and stated that the area would eventually be home to 1,500 jobs.

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) was also present at the announcement and wore her father’s retirement badge from Kaiser Jeep, the successor to the Willys-Overland Company that first manufactured Jeep vehicles.

She held up an enlarged black-and-white photo of an electric car manufactured in Toledo in 1905 by the Milburn Wagon Company.

“Toledo has a history here,” she said. “Some of those Milburn buildings still stand on Monroe Street near Detroit and Bancroft. It’s interesting to think that we were innovators. Scientists and manufacturers were searching for ways to propel the nation. They found it. And now we’re into a new century with a new mandate. We have the best propulsion facilities in the world right here.”

Ms. Kaptur said the funding would preserve “hundreds and hundreds” of jobs in the Toledo area.

At present, the Skyview Drive plant is a large facility where a handful of workers are training to be production supervisors when the plant goes into operation. Those workers are members of UAW Local 12. Representative Kaptur and Secretary Granholm stressed that the jobs at the Mobis plant would be union jobs.

Union leaders Bruce Baumhower and Tony Totty were also present for the announcement of the federal grant.

Mr. Baumhower stated that he had been involved with the Mobis plant from the day that the factory’s concrete floor was poured to the present. The completed facility will have a dedicated office for the union that represents the Mobis workers.

Ms. Granholm also addressed one of the bottlenecks that has inhibited more widespread adoption of electric vehicles, namely, the lack of a robust network of charging stations.

“Part of the President’s Investing in America agenda was to provide $4.5 billion to build out a charging infrastructure nationwide,” she said. “The private sector is doing some of that, but there are gaps. For example, the goal is to have a charging station every 50 miles along a transportation corridor. All of that funding has been distributed now to the states.

“Ohio has installed its first charging station under this program and has 140 more that they are planning to install. Our goal is to have 500,000 publicly available EV chargers across the country by 2030. We’re on track to do that even sooner than that. There are about 187,000 publicly available chargers now across the country, and 900 are being added every single week.”