Why is the US building electric car battery factories?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 17 October 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We’re in Kentucky, where an area which had long ago been abandoned as an industrial site is once again coming to life.
US manufacturer Ascend Elements has chosen the site to build a factory for electric car batteries made from recycled ones - an industry previously almost entirely based in China.
We explore the government incentives that have drawn the company to build here with US Climate Envoy John Kerry.
And we hear from the local mining community which is hoping the new green manufacturing facility may provide much needed jobs.
Presenter: Faisal Islam Producer: Priya Patel
(Image: A worker at the factory building site in Kentucky. Credit: BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Amazing Sports Stories, coming soon to the BBC World Service. |
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| 0:12.6 | Let's do this. |
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| 0:19.9 | Hello, I'm Faisal Islam, the BBC's economics editor and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:27.0 | Today we're in Kentucky in the US. I'm in an area which had long ago been abandoned, but is once again coming to life. |
| 0:34.2 | This huge construction site, this is only one. This is happening all across the United States. |
| 0:38.9 | What has done is it's accelerated the US's ability to be self-reliant to make these battery |
| 0:44.4 | materials, to make batteries on their own. |
| 0:46.8 | US manufacturer Ascend Elements has chosen this site to build a factory for electric car battery |
| 0:52.1 | chemicals made from recycled ones, an industry previously |
| 0:55.5 | almost entirely based in China. It's been drawn here by US incentives. The country is spending |
| 1:01.3 | billions, tens of billions of dollars in new subsidies by loans and tax breaks targeted at green |
| 1:08.2 | energy and vehicles. It's going to be a game changer, a life-changing event for a lot of |
| 1:13.1 | people. We have lost 40,000 mining jobs since 2011. Our coal field communities have absolutely been |
| 1:21.4 | devastated. Our miners have had to left their homes. They are in all parts of the country now |
| 1:26.4 | trying to find work. |
| 1:28.0 | So does this mean a boost for the local economy? |
| 1:30.4 | I'll be finding out what that means for business in the US and globally. |
| 1:34.4 | That's all coming up on Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm here walking on a ridge next to what was 140 acres of a farm in Kentucky. |
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