3 named American battery factories are actually making batteries in 2026, and a 3.5 billion dollar Indiana plant is not one of them

American battery factories actually making batteries in 2026

Toyota, Panasonic and LG Energy Solution run the 3 named American battery factories actually making batteries in 2026, according to an announcement from each company about its own plant. Toyota Battery Manufacturing, North Carolina, started shipping cells to United States electric vehicle assembly plants in April 2025. Toyota invested nearly 14 billion dollars in the plant and plans up to 5,000 jobs there, and owns it 90% through Toyota Motor North America and 10% through Toyota Tsusho, a trading company. Panasonic Energy opened its own plant in De Soto, Kansas, on 14 July 2025, after investing 4 billion dollars. The company states the 300 acre plant produces approximately 66 lithium ion batteries every second, and has hired about 1,000 of the up to 4,000 workers it plans to employ. LG Energy Solution started production at its Lansing, Michigan plant on 18 August 2026, after investing more than 2 billion dollars there since 2022. About 900 workers run the 226 acre plant now, toward a planned 1,700, and the company aims for more than 35 gigawatt hours a year of capacity once the plant reaches full scale, a gigawatt hour being enough energy to measure the yearly output of a large battery factory.

1 plant serving 2 different buyers

The Lansing plant run by LG Energy Solution is the clearest sourced example this year of a single American plant serving 2 different battery markets from 1 site. It makes lithium iron phosphate cells, a battery chemistry favored for its low cost and stability, for energy storage systems, batteries that store power for the electric grid rather than for a car, and nickel manganese cobalt cells, a chemistry favored for packing more energy into less space, for electric vehicles, including the 2027 Toyota Highlander, side by side in the same building.

The jobs at this facility pay well, offer great benefits and require creativity and problem solving at all levels.

Dae Sik Choi, president of LG Energy Solution Michigan. Source 3.

Lansing will produce advanced batteries that support not only the future of mobility, but also America's growing energy infrastructure and digital economy.

David Kim, chief executive of LG Energy Solution. Source 3.

The plant that did not make it

Not every announced plant reaches this point. General Motors sold its entire 49.99% stake in a joint venture with Samsung SDI, a company the 2 built together, in New Carlisle, Indiana, to Samsung SDI, announced 11 August 2026, after construction had already paused earlier that year. The plant was originally planned to cost 3.5 billion dollars, employ more than 1,600 people and produce 27 gigawatt hours a year of cells for electric vehicles, scalable to 36, with mass production originally set for 2027. Samsung SDI now controls the unfinished site alone and plans to add a line making cells for energy storage systems instead of the electric vehicle cells the plant was built for, its first wholly owned production base in North America. General Motors took a charge of about 6 billion dollars tied to scaling back its electric vehicle plans generally, not only this 1 plant.

Cancellations add up nationwide

The Indiana reversal is not isolated. E2, a nonpartisan business group that tracks clean energy project announcements, counts 39 United States battery manufacturing projects cancelled, closed or downsized since August 2022, current to its own update from March 2026. Those cancellations cost 23.1 billion dollars in lost investment and 25,261 lost jobs.