'Battery Belt' Counts on EV Success

Towns gear up as automakers build plants, despite fears subsidies are at risk

- By CHRISTOPHER OTTS AND MIKE COLIAS

Mayor Jeff Gregory stood in the cinder-block frame of what is soon to be a new fire station in his 33,000-person town. Even before the cement dries, this small community in central Kentucky already is planning two more firehouses. A $150 million upgrade of the city's wastewater treatment plant is also in the works, and dozens of apartment buildings are going up on former farmland.

The town is gearing up for a population boom from a pair of electric-vehicle battery factories rising nearby in rural Glendale, Ky., one of which is scheduled to start production in the coming months. Ford Motor is building both of them. Like many automakers, it is anticipating some aid from the U.S. government as it gets into the battery business.

"We have invested, banking on their success," Gregory said, referring to the town's preparations for the new factories.

Now, tens of billions in federal money to support more than a dozen new U.S. battery plants similar to the Elizabethtown project are at risk, as President-elect Donald Trump and some Republicans in the GOP-led Congress threaten to eliminate federal funding for EVs.

Construction binge