Energy Department cancels $200M Microvast battery grant
Energy Department cancels $200M Microvast battery grant | Manufacturing Dive
The Department of Energy has canceled a $200 million grant awarded to Microvast after lawmakers questioned the lithium-ion battery maker’s ties to China’s government.
The Stafford, Texas-based company was one of 20 awarded funding through the first round of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Microvast, in collaboration with General Motors, was set to use the grant to build a facility to expand production of separators, enabling faster charging and longer battery life in electric vehicles.
The facility was expected to supply battery components to its existing battery cell manufacturing plant in Clarksville, Tennessee, which is in its final construction phase, Microvast said earlier this month. The Department of Energy said in a statement to Manufacturing Dive that it cannot comment publicly on why it decided to cancel negotiations with any applicant.
In December, Republican Rep. Frank Lucas sent a letter to Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm criticizing the funding decision, saying it raised “serious concerns about the Department’s ability to protect U.S. taxpayer dollars from exploitation by the CCP.”
Lucas, chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said in a statement Monday he was “pleased with DOE’s decision, but incredibly frustrated that it took the Department six months and multiple letters from our Committee to come to such an obvious conclusion.”
“These funds are intended to strengthen America’s battery production and supply chain, not to tighten China’s stranglehold on these supplies,” he said.
Microvast did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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