Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is not happy with Lion Electric (LEV) and he's blaming President-elect Donald Trump for the stagnant EV market.
The Quebec-based manufacturer of battery-electric Class 6 and 8 commercial trucks and school buses quietly announced earlier this month it had temporarily laid off more than half of its workforce, fired its president, and halted production at its Joliet, Il. factory.
[Related: Lion Electric suspends Illinois plant production, lays off hundreds]
The 900,000 square-foot factory, located about 50 miles from Chicago opened in July 2023. Pritzker was on hand for the factory's ribbon cutting ceremony. It is the largest U.S.-based plant solely dedicated to all-electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicle manufacturing, capable of churning out around 20,000 vehicles annually.
Lion was slated to receive state tax credits through the Reimagining Energy and Vehicles (REV) tax credit.
Speaking for the first time since Lion's announcement, Pritzker expressed frustration with Lion and confirmed the company has "not received state money" and this will remain the case for now.
“If they reach the goals that they’ve set with us, and there’s an agreement that gets set, hiring a certain number of people, fulfilling on a certain amount of investment, then they receive the benefit of those tax credits,” Pritzker said last Wednesday. “But if they don’t, then they haven’t lived up to their part of the agreement, the state does not owe them anything. But look, I’m very disappointed in their progress.”
In contrast, the Quebec government invested around $177 million CAD into Lion, and the federal level, Ottawa chipped in $30 million CAD of the $50 million CAD it initially promised.
Turning his attention to the president-elect, the Democrat governor said that "there's an awful lot of pressure that's been put on electric vehicle companies as a result of Donald Trump's rhetoric and promises that he's made to kind of tear down the electric vehicle... industry development."
Republican State Rep. Dan Caulkins responded to Pritzker saying that using tax funds to give the local EV industry a boost is not the right way to do business.
"You can't force people to by electric cars. It's not going to work," Caulkins stated.
Lion received a payment period extension earlier this month, which expires today, December 16, for several loans that were due the final weekend of November. At last report, it was still seeking a business partner in order to continue to receive public funding from the Coalition Avenir Quebec government.
Lion Electric's stock, traded on the New York and Toronto Stock Exchange, continued to drop Monday, closing at 25 cents and 34 cents per share, respectively. Those figures are down from $1.04 USD and $1.34 CAD only six months ago.
