Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has blasted the Biden administration's policy to push electric vehicles as a "radical plan" as he campaigns against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
But what if there were a program that could help prepare the way for small to medium-size automotive manufacturers in Michigan to transition to the electric vehicle market?
Michigan State University and the University of Michigan are leading such an initiative. The U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded a $500,000 grant to the MSU Industrial Training Assessment Center and UM Economic Growth Institute to launch the Michigan Automotive Supply Chain Technical Assistance Program.
The two-year initiative is centered around testing and developing a comprehensive electrification transition playbook with manufacturers and business leaders. The guide, developed with insights from Argonne National Laboratory and private sector experts, is designed to offer technical, financial and strategic support, officials said.
It's an opportunity to "pressure test" the playbook and how it works, said Judd Herzer, mobility director for MSU.
Herzer said the team will use "both the scientific and economic research that the industrial assessment center does as well as the feedback from the manufacturers themselves to inform the national lab about what went well with the playbook, where there might be some gaps in their understanding of what the transition is, or basically how to make the playbook better before then it gets rolled out on a national scale and made available to everybody for implementation."
Herzer said they will identify participating manufacturers through MEMA, formerly known as the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association. The association has access to more than 500 small and medium manufacturers.
Small and medium companies are considered those with fewer than 500 employees at the plant site, gross annual sales below $250 million and annual energy bills between $100,000 and $3.5 million. The company must also be located within 150 miles of an industrial training assessment center.
The program is designed to help companies make their operations more energy-efficient and shift from producing internal combustion engine components to electric vehicle parts.
"A big, big focus of the work that we're doing is helping these manufacturers understand the timeline, different skill set that will be required by their workforce to successfully make the products that will be in demand in the future," Herzer said.
Annick Anctil, assistant director of the MSU ITAC, said the initiative is an addition to the work the center is already doing by providing assessments for small and medium companies on ways to reduce their energy consumption. Some of those businesses are in the automotive sector with an interest in electrification, she said.
"It might already be one that we've done and we just do more in-depth work with them in that area," she said.
Anctil said the program will give manufacturers a strategy to survive, particularly businesses that operate in and employ people in small towns.
"Not just surviving, but transition into another industry that you can have another 20, 30 years of manufacturing ...," she said. "I don't want all those manufacturing jobs to just end if we reduce how much combustion vehicle we're doing, because it's such an important industry for the Midwest region and Michigan."
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