General Motors plans to lay off thousands of employees at electric vehicle plants across the country, partly in response to President Donald Trump’s efforts to remove government support for the industry.
GM plans to lay off over 3,300 workers at its plants in Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. Among those affected, more than 1,700 workers will be laid off indefinitely, while over 1,500 are anticipated to be called back in mid-2026.
Battery plants in Ohio and Tennessee, operated with LG Energy Solution, will begin shutting down in January and will resume operations in mid-2026. The automaker also plans to indefinitely lay off 1,200 of the 3,400 workers at its electric vehicle assembly plant in Detroit.
“In response to slower near-term EV adoption and an evolving regulatory environment, General Motors is realigning EV capacity,” the company told CNBC in a statement.
“Despite these changes, GM remains committed to our U.S. manufacturing footprint, and we believe our investments and dedication to flexible operations will make GM more resilient and capable of leading through change,” the company added.
The Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Democrats and signed by former President Joe Biden.
The megabill, signed by Trump on July Fourth, eliminated the IRA’s EV tax credits, which offered consumers up to $7,500 for purchasing a new EV and $4,000 for a used one. The credits expired on Sept. 30.
The Trump administration and Republicans have long criticized tax incentives and regulations meant to boost the EV industry, claiming they are costly and coercive.
American dealerships saw an influx of consumers looking to purchase or lease EVs before the credits expired. Rho Motion last month found that EV sales in North America, which included the United States, Canada, and Mexico, are up 6% year-to-date.
Loren McDonald, CEO and chief analyst at the EV charging firm Chargeonomics, told the Washington Examiner that GM is likely to bring back workers at plants that produce the best-performing models.
McDonald noted that the models produced at the Detroit EV plant are not selling well due to their prices, including the Cadillac Escalade IQ and GMC Hummer.
“It’s an opportunity for them to say, ‘Let’s cut our losses, let’s slow it down, because sales are not very strong in general,’” McDonald said. “They’re probably just using this as a correction period to just sort of cut way back.”
BILL GATES CHANGES HIS TUNE ON ‘DOOMSDAY OUTLOOK’ OF CLIMATE CHANGE
“It sounds like they’re forecasting that they believe that their sales of all these models is going to drop significantly well into 2026,” he added.
