In 1970, the General Motors assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, was considered the world’s most advanced factory. Equipped with state-of-the-art robots and electronic sensors, the plant was designed to produce the Chevrolet Vega, a new car GM hoped would be a success. The Vega, envisioned by a team handpicked by GM President Ed Cole, was designed to be a sleek, compact “import fighter,” meant to compete with more fuel-efficient foreign models. However, despite decent sales initially, the Vega became a symbol of GM’s engineering problems. The car was plagued with issues from the start.
Chevrolet recalled half a million Vegas because the wheels could fall off, and the fenders and doors were prone to rust. The engine, prone to overheating, could destroy itself if not properly maintained. Production-line workers, meanwhile, struggled with the high-speed, monotonous production. The plant, which had previously produced 60 Impalas an hour, now had to produce 100 Vegas in the same timeframe. Management laid off more than 700 workers due to overstaffing. The remaining members of the United Auto Workers Local 1112 experienced grievances and absenteeism. The union started a “work to rule” campaign, slowing down production. Some at GM suspected employees were sabotaging the process. In March 1972, 7,500 workers went on strike.
As The New York Times wrote at the time, a failure at Lordstown could have meant “a step toward ending production in the United States of vehicles designed to compete with imports.” The Vega disaster should become a lesson about planning for today’s car industry. The rise of electric vehicles represents the most significant transformation in auto manufacturing since Henry Ford invented of the moving assembly line. However, traditional automakers have struggled to keep up. GM and Ford are again struggling to compete with foreign companies, having concentrated on large, expensive gas-guzzlers rather than investing in the future. Ford lost billions on its EV business in 2024, and GM faces losses abroad. Both companies could see billions in losses if the White House’s proposed tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada, and China, are completely implemented.
As companies blame issues on workers, consumers, and competitors, President Donald Trump and the GOP blame the nonexistent Green New Deal and China. As in the case of the Vega, executives in Detroit are primarily responsible for not adapting to change. Meanwhile, the White House incentivizes companies to continue their short-sighted strategies, leaving autoworkers to manage the consequences. This won’t be the first time autoworkers have experienced their bosses’ mistakes. Surviving the Vega, the deindustrialization of the Mahoning Valley, and the Great Recession, GM “reallocated” Lordstown Assembly in 2019. In March of that year, after years of layoffs, the company closed production of the Chevy Cruze, leaving about 1,700 people unemployed. Among them was George Goranitis, of Warren, Ohio, who had held several jobs at Lordstown for more than 10 years. When the factory closed, he transferred to another UAW shop in Tennessee. “I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life,” he said, becoming emotional. He moved home less than a year later to be closer to his family, taking jobs that paid significantly less than he had earned at Lordstown. Eventually, he began working at Ultium Cells in 2022.
Ultium Cells, a joint venture between General Motors and the Korean firm LG Energy Solution, is situated near the old Lordstown Assembly site. The new plant is exceptionally automated, just like Lordstown was in its early days. Ultium is meant to help GM challenge foreign competition through Korean expertise and imported technologies and produces the lithium-ion batteries that power electric versions of models like the Chevy Equinox and Cadillac Lyriq. In many ways, Ultium represents the future of the car industry that Joe Biden envisioned.
The Department of Energy awarded the factory a $2.5 billion loan in 2022 as part of a plan to foster “a clear demand signal for EV batteries as the auto industry races to build the vehicles of the future right here in America.” Like other funds provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, the money for automakers was intended to encourage investment in domestic manufacturing and dominate the growth industries of the future. At GM’s “Factory Zero” in 2021, which was retooled to produce EVs, Biden spoke about the vision. “For most of the twenty-first century, we led the world by a significant margin because we invested in our people,” Biden said in front of electric Hummers. “But something went wrong along the way.… We risk losing our edge as a nation, and China and the rest of the world are catching up. Well, we’re about to turn that around in a big, big way. We’re going to be building again.”
The nature of construction has changed. Since much of Ultium’s production is automated, the work is less physical than in traditional engine and assembly plants. Because the work involves extensive computer operation and careful monitoring, constant monitoring is necessary to mitigate potential risks from the chemicals involved in battery production. Within weeks of Ultium’s opening in August 2022, a malfunction released a noxious chemical compound into the air. Evacuated workers and contractors reported burning sensation in their eyes and mouths, headaches, and dizziness. Air samples taken the following month showed trace levels of the same substance. As in 1972, the introduction of new production methods has been met with a surge of organizing, including some focus on health and safety issues.
Within weeks of being hired, Goranitis began hearing from coworkers about dangerous conditions. He started efforts to bring in his old union, Local 1112. In 2022, eager for protection, Ultium workers voted to unionize (710–16). In June 2024, they ratified their first contract. When Goranitis began working at the factory, he made $16.50 an hour, approximately half of what he earned in his last year at Lordstown Assembly. It would have taken seven years for him to earn $21 per hour. The union contract provides Ultium production workers with $35 an hour after just four years, plus cost of living increases.
Carmakers have tried to resist the new organizing by committing to climate goals despite years of failing to invest in electrification. They argue that meeting union demands would require them to abandon their new commitment to the field. As the UAW negotiated and struck over its master agreement with the Big Three automakers (GM, Ford, and Stellantis) in 2023, one of the union’s main goals was to prevent automakers from using electrification to hurt wages, benefits, and protections. When Factory Zero reopened to make EVs, jobs previously done by GM employees were reassigned to contractors. GM pursued a similar approach at Ultium. Goranitis, now the president of Local 1112, pushed back against Ultium and GM’s arguments because of a joint financial structure. GM agreed to include both Ultium and GM Subsystems workers in the master agreement ratified last June.
“We’ve been told for months that the EV future must be a race to the bottom,” UAW International president Shawn Fain said after the deal was struck. “And now we’ve called their bluff.” If Democrats and Republicans can agree on anything, it is the importance of the U.S. auto sector and votes in states such as Michigan and Ohio. Joe Biden became the first sitting president to walk a picket line. Automakers, Biden told the crowd, are “doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well, too.” Vice President JD Vance, then an Ohio senator, visited strikers in Toledo. For Democrats, the Big Three and its workforce were to lead the way to a green manufacturing renaissance. Republicans resisted even plans to expand the market for electric vehicles, hoping out-of-work autoworkers could be used against those plans and climate policies. In Trump’s inaugural address, he pledged to “revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers.”
The auto industry isn’t what it used to be. Amid electrification and China’s rise as an automaking power, U.S. automakers are retreating from global markets. If the industry is to resemble the source of middle-class prosperity politicians imagine, it can’t abandon EVs. The alternative is a slow, painful decline that will harm the industry and its workers.
Detroit has a lot of ground to cover. Chinese companies now produce around 80 percent of the world’s EV battery cells. China also dominates supply chains for the minerals needed to produce the batteries. According to the International Energy Agency, Chinese firms process more than half the world’s lithium, two-thirds of its cobalt, and more than 70 percent of its graphite.
The Biden administration relied primarily on three levers: subsidies, tariffs, and regulations. The centerpiece of “Bidenomics” was the Inflation Reduction Act. That package includes a $7,500 rebate for individuals and businesses to purchase new electric vehicles. There are also funds for EV charging infrastructure and tax credits to convert and expand facilities for the production of EVs, batteries, and their components. Soon after taking office, Trump signed an executive order pausing all federal disbursements under the IRA and the IIJA. Restricting future loans to automakers could harm anyone trying to break into the EV market.
Given how reluctant the Big Three have historically been to go electric, rolling back incentives could encourage them to focus on business as usual. Asked about the prospect of EV subsidies ending, Goranitis said it was “one of the biggest worries for us.” According to experts, tax credits for manufacturers may be preserved. Ending consumer-side subsidies for EVs is a high priority, and could cause sales to drop by up to 27 percent. In early February, the Federal Highway Administration ordered states to suspend the $5 billion, IIJA-funded National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, pending review. The White House’s anti-regulatory push could remove other incentives for automakers to go electric.
The so-called EV mandate in the administration’s crosshairs doesn’t force manufacturers to make a certain number of EVs. It is targeting pollution and fuel economy standards. Trump wants to claw back waivers granted by the Environmental Protection Agency that allow California to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035. The Department of Transportation is reviewing federal fuel economy standards. Although worlds apart, neither party’s approach to the U.S. auto sector has been willing to confront its present reality.
As more people drive worldwide, more of their cars will be EVs. A relatively small proportion will be Made in America. How they’re made bears little resemblance to politicians’ fantasies. Like the AA batteries in your junk drawer, the batteries that power EVs have two electrodes: a positively charged cathode and a negatively charged anode. Each stage presents unique risks. The EPA, for instance, has found that a solvent commonly used in cathode production poses an “unreasonable risk of injury.”
Emily Drueke works in quality control at BlueOval SK, or BOSK, a joint venture between Ford and the Korean firm SK On. Drueke and her team have been requesting powered respirators since November. “I’d much rather have too much [personal protective equipment] than not enough.” In January, Drueke joined a supermajority of her coworkers in filing a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for a vote to form a union with the UAW. Building electric vehicle batteries doesn’t need to be dangerous. The progress the UAW has made in organizing battery plant and EV workers could be harder to come by. Bosses will find it easier to interfere in any union elections that do eventually proceed. Attacking the laws and institutions that can make jobs in the country’s EV sector safer means fewer jobs will be created. That provides an opportunity for the right to paint EV manufacturing as inherently dangerous.
Reliance on critical minerals mined in Chile’s Atacama Desert and parts made in Mexico or Canada means today’s cars are global products. For automakers, tariffs will be the most important change under Trump 2.0, as he has virtually unilateral control over them. Biden maintained and expanded tariffs on China that he initiated in 2018. He placed a 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles and raised tariffs on lithium-ion batteries to 25 percent.
Automakers received a one-month exemption from Trump’s proposed tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico. Roughly a quarter of all cars sold in the United States come directly from either Mexico or Canada. General Motors is Mexico’s biggest car manufacturer. Car costs for consumers could increase by an average of $3,000 as manufacturers pay levies on finished vehicles and car components that can cross the U.S. border multiple times during the assembly process. One auto executive warned that tariffs could wipe out “billions of dollars of industry profits” and threaten “the entire value system in our industry.”
Coupled with funds from the IRA and tightened fuel efficiency rules, Biden’s protectionist measures were designed to buy time for manufacturers to catch up to international competitors. Detroit ceded the market for smaller, typically more fuel-efficient models to foreign producers. Another important loophole arrived with the Energy Policy and Conservation Act in 1975. Larger cars are subject to looser regulations, face less foreign competition, and promise larger profit margins. As the United States focused on bigger cars for its domestic market, China became a global automaking power. In 2000, China made just 1 percent of the world’s cars. The country now produces 39 percent of light-duty vehicles globally and two-thirds of the world’s EVs. Conversely, America’s share of global auto production has dropped from 15 to just 3 percent.
The consequences of that retreat and failure to invest in the future have begun to affect Detroit executives. Farley warned that Chinese firms pose an “existential threat,” not only due to price and quality, but because consumers there are increasingly choosing Chinese vehicles. As high-quality domestic models proliferate in China, foreign automakers that once made fortunes there are struggling to compete. The situation is serious. GM announced in December that it would take a $5 billion write-down, having lost hundreds of millions in China. Both Ford and GM have to focus, and adapt, to keep their customers in the Chinese market.
If the White House scraps EV incentives, ditches fuel efficiency rules, or makes it impossible to buy from Chinese battery and critical minerals producers, the Big Three could be tempted to focus on their main profit center.
Ultium said it will “continue to produce high-quality battery cells based on demand.” BOSK said it will “monitor changes made by the current administration and adapt as needed.” Over the coming four years, autoworkers will again be on the receiving end of strategic shifts. Ford and GM scaled back their electrification pledges prior to Trump’s election, and are rethinking their approach in general. Analysts predict that automakers may slow their EV transitions, potentially stalling the momentum that had built up in the industry.
Goranitis, the UAW Local 1112 president, pointed to what had happened to the Youngstown area after Lordstown Assembly was shuttered: a long line of plant closures across industries. Still, there may be some hope yet. The UAW committed Ford, GM, and Stellantis to making billions of dollars in EV-related investments as part of their 2023 master agreement. Major U.S. automakers have united to support expanding EV charging infrastructure. Goranitis is eager to appeal to Republican politicians and, especially, fellow Ohio native JD Vance. “I’m hoping he has some type of sympathy,” Goranitis said.
