As of December 2, 2024, the Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced a conditional commitment for a loan of $7.54 billion to StarPlus Energy LLC to finance up to two lithium-ion battery cell and module manufacturing plants in Kokomo, Indiana. [1] The borrower is a joint venture between FCA US LLC (a subsidiary of Stellantis N.V.) and Samsung SDI Co. Ltd. The output from the facilities will be sold to Stellantis for use in electric vehicle models that will be sold in North America, with the goal of ensuring that the US can meet domestic demand and maintain its leadership in the electric vehicle industry. At full capacity, the StarPlus project will produce 67GWh of batteries, enough to supply 670,000 vehicles annually. The DOE estimates that the EVs produced using StarPlus batteries will displace the usage of 260.3 million gallons of petroleum per year.
The project is part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to onshore and re-shore domestic manufacturing technologies. If finalized, the loan would be offered through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program, which provides loans to support US manufacturing of advanced technology vehicles, qualifying components, and materials that improve fuel economy.