The GM Samsung Indiana battery plant is still paused, and Samsung SDI now owns the entire 3.5 billion dollar project after buying out the stake General Motors sold

The GM Samsung Indiana battery plant is still paused

The GM Samsung Indiana battery plant, built by General Motors and Samsung SDI in New Carlisle, Indiana, is still paused, not cancelled. A release Samsung SDI published in August 2026 states plainly that the plant is currently under construction. Construction there stopped around May 19, 2026, according to InkFreeNews, the local outlet that first reported the pause. Bill Schalliol, the Executive Director of Economic Development for St. Joseph County, gave 3 reasons for the timing.

It just got to the point where they needed to stop their project and put it on pause until either the economy changes or other factors change.

Bill Schalliol, Executive Director of Economic Development for St. Joseph County. Source 4.

Schalliol said the pause has no set end date. 230 construction workers were on site as of March 31, 2026, before work stopped, and the exterior of the plant stood about 60 feet tall at that point. The project had worked toward a substantial completion deadline of December 31, 2027 since 2023, a deadline the companies must now either meet or renegotiate.

Samsung SDI now owns all of it

Samsung SDI bought out the entire stake General Motors held in the joint venture, called SynergyCells, in a deal signed August 11, 2026. A release from Samsung SDI states the company acquired the 49.99% stake General Motors held in SynergyCells, leaving Samsung SDI as the sole owner of a venture that started close to an even split. Subtracting 49.99% from 100% puts the earlier share held by Samsung SDI at 50.01%, arithmetic performed for this article rather than a figure either company states directly.

Grid batteries replace the electric vehicle cells the plant was built for

Samsung SDI will initially use the plant to make cells for energy storage systems, batteries that store power for the electric grid rather than for a car, replacing the electric vehicle cells the plant was originally built to make. The 2 companies also signed a joint development agreement to keep working on a next generation prismatic battery cell for possible future use in electric vehicles. The joint venture, finalized in 2024, had planned an initial annual capacity of 27 gigawatt hours, rising to 36 gigawatt hours under expansion, employment of more than 1,600 people on a 680 acre site, and mass production starting in 2027.

The plan had already slipped a year before the pause

General Motors chair and chief executive Mary Barra described the ambition behind the plant when Indiana announced the project in 2023.

This joint venture and the 1,700 people there will help supply cells for millions of all-electric vehicles for customers across North America.

Mary Barra, General Motors chair and chief executive. Source 5.

That 2023 announcement named 1,700 jobs, more than 30 gigawatt hours of capacity, and production starting in 2026. The agreement finalized in 2024 lowered the jobs figure to more than 1,600, set capacity at 27 gigawatt hours rising to 36, and pushed mass production back a year to 2027, before the May 2026 pause added a further delay with no set length. Carl Baxmeyer, president of the St. Joseph County Board of Commissioners, described the scale of the local stakes when the project was announced.

This project represents the largest single investment and job commitment in St. Joseph County in the last 75 years and will impact our region for decades.

Carl Baxmeyer, president of the St. Joseph County Board of Commissioners. Source 5.

The pause sits inside a nationwide pullback

A filing General Motors made with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission states the company expected to record approximately 6 billion dollars in charges for the 3 months ended December 31, 2025, about 1.8 billion dollars in non cash impairments and about 4.2 billion dollars in supplier settlements and contract cancellation fees. The filing ties those charges to a broader reassessment of the electric vehicle capacity and manufacturing footprint of General Motors, prompted by the end of certain consumer tax incentives and looser emissions rules, and never names the Indiana plant specifically.