electric vehicles

Though Kentucky is home to several major EV industry developments, the Bluegrass State’s drivers have been even slower than most to make the shift. In a press release from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a lobbying group of car manufacturers, their data showed that Kentucky ranks 39th in the electric vehicle market. In 2024, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet reported it had just 14,410 registered passenger vehicles that were fully electric. That’s less than 1% of the state’s personal automobiles.

Ford Motor Company plans to invest nearly $2 billion in the Louisville Assembly Plant to expand and build a new midsize electric truck. Its plans will require an expansion and retooling of the entire factory, but will mean fewer jobs.

Workers at a sprawling electric vehicle battery campus in Glendale, Kentucky will vote this month on whether to unionize. The National Labor Relations Board has scheduled Aug. 26-27 for an election that will determine whether hourly employees at the BlueOval SK plant will join the United Auto Workers Union.

Tennessee faces one of the highest potential job losses in the nation under proposed federal legislation. President Trump's tax bill could put thousands of jobs in the electric vehicle manufacturing sector at risk.

Rural residents might stand to benefit more than their urban counterparts by switching to electric vehicles. A team at Tennessee Tech wants to make it easier for Appalachian residents to test drive and charge EVs.

An electric vehicle battery supplier has paused construction on a factory in western Kentucky.

Ascend and the U.S. Department of Energy have mutually agreed to cancel a $164 million federal grant for part of the manufacturing infrastructure at the company’s Apex 1 facility, the company announced.

Buoyed by notable Southern victories in 2024, the United Auto Workers Union is on a quest to organize the electric vehicle and battery sector. The UAW hopes its next prize is a sprawling campus in rural Kentucky that, once completed, will be the largest EV battery plant in the world.

Tennessee is among five states to receive multi-million-dollar awards to re-tool and upgrade automotive facilities to serve the growing electric vehicle market.

Uncertainty over President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for federal tax credits and loan programs supporting American electric vehicle manufacturing could stall Tennessee’s fast-growing electric vehicle and clean energy industries, analysts say.