South Bend Tribune ran Caryl Auslander's opinion piece on how Indiana can solidify itself as a manufacturing hub for electric vehicles. Read snippets below and the full article here.

America is changing the way it drives, and Indiana is sitting in the driver’s seat. Our state will soon be home to thousands of new, good-paying jobs and record investment in electric vehicle and component production facilities at a moment when EVs are poised to take off.

Earlier this year, battery maker Samsung SDI and carmaker Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) committed $2.5 billion to build a battery factory in Kokomo expected to create 1,400 jobs. General Motors, which hopes to build 1 million electric vehicles by 2025 and sell only electric vehicles by 2035, announced this month that they will invest $491 million to expand and upgrade a facility in Marion to support EV production...

From 2020 to 2021, electric vehicle jobs in Indiana grew 29%. With the EV industry poised to expand exponentially in the years ahead, this growth should continue. New national policies will incentivize the purchase of US-made EVs, the production of those vehicles in America, and the installation of vehicle chargers. Four in 10 jobs in this rapidly growing electric vehicle industry were in manufacturing as of 2019, according to a report from Advanced Energy Economy, a business association. Indiana’s leadership should continue to fight to make sure that Indiana is the recipient of many of those manufacturing jobs...

With private investment pouring in and federal funding dedicated to support EV ownership and usage, Indiana is wise to continue positioning itself as a manufacturing hub for the vehicles and parts that will be relied on as America transitions to electric-powered vehicles over the coming decades. Thanks to these developments, Indiana is on its way to becoming the Crossroads of an Electrified America.

Read the full article here.