$175M EV battery project expected to bring hundreds of jobs to Michigan

FLINT, MI – A $175 million project has been announced to bring an electric vehicle battery materials company to Flint’s historic Buick City. The investment is expected to create hundreds of jobs and play a key role in revitalizing the local economy, signaling a new chapter in Flint’s industrial resurgence.

NanoGraf, an Illinois-based leading battery materials company, received a $60 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s for the construction of a new manufacturing facility.

A groundbreaking is expected in 2025, with an official opening in 2027.

The company will pay for the rest of the project and additional matching grant dollars may also become available to fund the project from the Make it in Michigan Competitiveness Fund, administered through the Michigan Infrastructure Office.

The facility will create approximately 200 new construction jobs through a project labor agreement with the North American Building Trades Union — and up to 150 permanent jobs, with 80% sourced from local talent — for the company to produce 2,500 tons of its proprietary silicon anode battery material annually, enough to supply 1.5 million EVs per year according to a company news release.

“Michigan in general made a bunch of sense, and Flint, in particular, made sense because of the ecosystem and cultural fit,” said Francis Wang, CEO of NanoGraf. “We got a lot of support from the Flint and Genesee Economic Alliance. They were incredibly helpful. Got to meet the mayor and his team. Just thoroughly impressed in general. It felt like there was a connection.”

Flint’s automotive history with General Motors, and its close proximity to Detroit and Chicago, was an attractive appeal for Wang, he said.

NanoGraf has signed a neutrality agreement with the United Steelworkers and is committed to partnering with them should a majority of employees wish to be represented by the union.

Founded in 2012, NanoGraf focuses on enhancing battery energy density, which allows batteries to store more energy, last longer, and charge faster using silicon powder, instead of the commonly used graphite.

“Silicon is able to store 10 times the amount of energy per weight, which is really important,” Wang said. “Over the last five to seven years, silicon has become a very hot topic in lithium ion because it is a way in which we can improve the performance of lithium ion batteries on a number of different levels. For electric vehicles, it’s higher energy density of the cell, which means longer range, higher power density, which means faster charging.”

The city of Flint’s concierge service for businesses played a key role in bringing NanoGraf to Flint. City staff provided coordination for zoning needs, priorities for economic development, and robust connections throughout the community for workforce pipelines and possible suppliers. This support contributed to a strong application to the US Department of Energy to secure the necessary funding for NanoGraf’s Flint expansion.

“No City of Flint funding has been invested in this project, and there is no tax abatement,” said Emily Doerr, Flint Director of Business and Community Services. “This means our community will receive the full benefits of this economic multiplier from day one, including increased tax revenue to support local infrastructure and service for Flint residents.”

NanoGraf is also known for producing high-performance lithium-ion batteries that are used in radios and other devices by the U.S. military. These batteries, enhanced with NanoGraf’s silicon-anode technology, offer significant improvements in energy density, which means they can store more energy in a smaller and lighter form factor compared to traditional batteries.

“This is really a watershed moment for our company, getting this type of funding,” Wang said. “And then locating it in a spot that has been historical at Buick City.”

The company’s wastewater is a zero discharge wastewater, meaning nothing it generates will head into the general population water, Wang said.

This is the second company to announce a move into the former Buick City, now called the Flint Commerce Center.

A packaging company with ties to General Motors became the first tenant at the old Buick City site in Flint.

Victory Packaging will occupy 166,000 square feet in the first spec building at the Commerce Center with its five-year lease starting in October, said Kevin Hegg, vice president of Ashley Capital, which is redeveloping the property.

Ashley Capital completed the purchase of roughly 300 acres of the former GM property in November from the Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response (RACER) Trust, which was charged with cleaning up contamination and reselling the former Buick site and 88 other properties that were abandoned by GM during its 2009 bankruptcy.

Ashley broke ground on the first building in the Commerce Center more than a year ago on 20 acres it purchased in advance of the closing on the purchase of the additional 273 acres from RACER.

The Commerce Center is expected to provide 3.5 million square feet of business space and be home to approximately 2,500 full-time employees.

Nearly $100 million of funding has gone toward the Commerce Center at a local and state level.

Michigan has been in the center of attention for attracting EV battery companies.

Ford Motor Co. is making progress building a 1.8-million square-foot electric vehicle battery plant on a mega site in Marshall. BlueOval Battery Park Michigan is expected to create 1,700 jobs with battery production kicking off in 2026.

But there have been major hurdles with that.

Ford paused construction last fall, downsized plans and cut 800 estimated jobs from the plant. A lawsuit aimed to halt construction until voters could have their say on rezoning the rural land. Also, Michigan slashed more than $600 million from an economic incentive package for the battery facility.

A new electric vehicle or semiconductor plant could be coming to the Flint area.

The 1,000-acre property located on the northern edge of Mundy Township and west of Linden Road, near the Flint Bishop International Airport, has been dubbed The Advanced Manufacturing District of Genesee County, planning to overhaul farmland into a major company.

A plant opening there could be one of the biggest coups the Flint area has ever received.

It is unclear which companies have expressed interest.

“Michigan workers and manufacturers are the best in the world. That’s why our state will continue to lead the way as we transition to electric vehicles and a clean energy future,” said U.S. Sen Debbie Stabenow, D-East Lansing. “These exciting investments will help strengthen our domestic supply chains and create more good-paying jobs right here at home.”

For NanoGraf and its CEO, the history of Flint and helping turn the city around is a major focus.

“When we think about the vision in a very broad sense, we use a term transitioning the rust belt into the battery belt,” Wang said. “That carries so much meaning. There’s so much history in Flint and Michigan and Illinois manufacturing in this region. This grant is probably the biggest stepping stone in the history of the company, it allows us to grow but be potentially competitive on a global scale.”