By Jarrett Renshaw
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Tuesday will announce that an Australian company that makes chargers for electric vehicles will build a manufacturing facility in Tennessee, the latest in a string of new U.S. factory announcements.
The Brisbane-based company, Tritium, and the White House say the new plant will produce up to 30,000 electric vehicle chargers per year and create 500 local jobs.
Tritium’s CEO, Jane Hunter, will appear alongside Biden at the White House at an afternoon event focused on boosting American manufacturing.
Biden has made rebuilding American manufacturing a key component of his economic agenda, including pushing for billions of dollars of public and private investments in the electric vehicle industry. The bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year provided money for a sprawling network of electric vehicle charging stations across the country.
Biden has argued that electric cars will be more climate-friendly and affordable for American families and the White House has set a target of half the vehicles sold in the United States to be electric or plug-in hybrids by 2030.
This announcement with Tritium is the latest in recent weeks by major companies announcing investments in U.S. manufacturing and jobs, including Intel Corp, General Motors Co and Boeing Co. More than $200 billion in investments in domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, electric vehicles, aircraft, and batteries announced since 2021.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons and Matthew Lewis)
