The maker of Jeep SUVs and Ram trucks is giving Michigan another chance to land an electric-vehicle battery plant and the hundreds of jobs that come with one after the Great Lakes State missed out on the company's first two for North America.
Mark Stewart, chief operating officer for North America at Stellantis NV, said the automaker could double the number of battery plants it has said it will launch by 2030 in the United States, Canada and Mexico to a total of four. He said Michigan, which has secured only one battery plant from a rival automaker, will be a part of those discussions, including for a third plant that would open in 2026 or 2027. The company expects up to 53% of its sales here will be all-electric by the end of the decade with 25 battery-electric options.
"Michigan will be a part of that discussion," Stewart told The Detroit News after a fireside chat Tuesday at Reuters' Automotive USA conference at the Huntington Place convention center downtown. "We're going back and having discussions with all of the states again, but ... I told (Michigan Economic Development Corp. CEO) Quentin Messer Jr. and (Gov.) Gretchen (Whitmer) both that we absolutely want to want to engage in conversations and look at sites again, being close to our areas of core strength and our people."
