As Samsung and General Motors prepare to pause construction of their New Carlisle EV battery plant, it’s unclear when work may resume. "We don’t know if the pause will last six weeks, six months, a year," says St. Joseph County Economic Development Director Bill Schalliol. "They don’t know. We don’t know."
GM confirmed the pause last week, saying it was to “align production capacity with current demand,” and adding that they would “communicate plans for the site at a future date.”
Schalliol says work is still taking place, but it will stop in a few weeks when construction reaches a "natural break point." "They’ve got to get the building secured and building sealed, so that it can be weather-tight and weather-resistant," Schalliol said. "They’re going to put up temporary fencing. They’ve got some grading and site work that they’re going to do over the next couple of weeks."
He said the building shell is at least 85-percent complete, but a lot of interior work would have to take place before it could open.
The incentive agreements with the county require GM and Samsung to have the project substantially complete and employees hired by December of 2027. Schalliol said it’s still possible for them to meet that deadline, “but there may be a discussion about extending incentives or maybe a suspension of incentives, until they get to a point where it’s wrapped up. I think it’s really too early at this point to make that determination, that judgment."
While similar plants have been able to shift battery production from electric vehicles to battery energy storage systems, Schalliol says the New Carlisle plant is still too far away from completion to pursue that option at this point.
In the meantime, he says the county continues working with GM on other issues, like transferring property for a planned interchange at State Road 2 and Larrison Boulevard. The county will also proceed with related utility work, like a new water tower and road improvements.
"We anticipate that there’ll be a lot of conversation with GM over the next couple months – weeks and months – as it talks with people, as it looks at the market, things like that, so we don’t anticipate that the site is going to sit idle long," Schalliol added.
