The US Department of Energy (DOE) this week announced new funding from President Biden’s bipartisan Infrastructure Law for domestic EV battery production and development.
The DOE on Monday announced $3.16 billion for the domestic battery supply chain. According to a DOE press release, part of the more than $7 billion that the infrastructure law has designated for battery manufacturing, it will fund new, retrofit and expanded manufacturing facilities, Demonstration of battery production and recycling.
In addition, the DOE has also designated $60 million in funding for so-called “second-generation” batteries after they’ve retired from electric vehicles.
Mercedes-Benz battery factory
On Tuesday, the DOE followed those announcements with an announcement of an additional $45 million in funding for battery development. Called America’s Low Carbon Electric Vehicles for Life (EVs4ALL) program, the program will be administered through the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects-Energy Agency (ARPA-E).
EVs4ALL will focus on three areas — fast charging, increased performance, and improved resiliency — said the DOE.
The Biden administration wants to expand domestic battery production as part of its goal of making half of all new vehicles sold in the US electric by 2030. Biden has made also moved to the Defense Production Act for some raw materials needed to manufacture batteries.
Mercedes-Benz Alabama Battery Factory
However, the Build Back Better bill will have more measures that can help strengthen the supply chain that has stalled in Congresslargely due to a lack of support from West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.
But experts interviewed by New York Times note that, even as more production goes to the United States, most battery materials still come from other countries. Cobalt is one of the raw materials due to keep EV battery costs so high for a while, the analysis showed.
The DOE of 2021 has shown EV affordability matches gasoline when the battery price hits $60/kwh at the cellular level. But due to rising raw material costs, that seems to be much more out of reach.
