GM and Samsung Are Building a $3.5 Billion Battery Factory in a Town of 1,900 People

New Carlisle Lands Indianas Biggest EV Deal

A small farming community in northern Indiana just became ground zero for America’s electric vehicle future.

General Motors and South Korea’s Samsung SDI are building a massive battery factory on 680 acres of land outside New Carlisle.

In a town where the population barely cracks 1,900, the plant will employ around 1,700 workers when it opens, nearly matching the entire town’s headcount.

Steel frames are already rising off State Road 2, and what happens here over the next two years could reshape this quiet corner of the Midwest for generations.

The Plant Will Power Millions of EVs

The New Carlisle factory will produce batteries with an initial capacity of 27 gigawatt hours per year, scaling up to 36 gigawatt hours.

That’s enough to supply cells for hundreds of thousands of electric trucks, SUVs, and cars rolling off GM assembly lines.

The facility will span roughly 2.5 million square feet and represents GM’s fourth battery plant in the United States, but the first one built with Samsung instead of LG Energy Solution.

The batteries will go into upcoming GM electric vehicles across North America.

Why Prismatic Batteries Matter

Prismatic cells are rectangular batteries with steel or aluminum casings that offer high energy density, meaning more power in a smaller package.

Their design allows for better heat dissipation, reducing the risk of overheating and making EVs safer.

Prismatic cells also require fewer electrical connections than cylindrical batteries, which means fewer opportunities for manufacturing defects.

For drivers, this translates to longer range, lower costs, and batteries that last longer before needing replacement.

Biggest County Investment in 75 Years

St.Joseph County officials called the project the largest single investment and job commitment the region has seen in 75 years.

The $3.5 billion price tag dwarfs anything the area has attracted since the postwar industrial boom.

The joint venture will receive local incentives including 100 percent tax abatement for the next decade, while GM will pay $4.5 million annually for infrastructure improvements like road upgrades, fiber optic cables, and sewer extensions.

County leaders see it as a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

South Bend Made Cars Before Detroit

The region’s automotive roots run deep.

The Studebaker brothers started a blacksmith shop in South Bend in the early 1850s, originally building horse-driven wagons.

During the Civil War, they supplied wagons to the Union Army, and by 1868 annual sales topped $350,000.

Studebaker successfully transitioned to automobiles in 1902 and kept expanding until the American auto industry declined in the 1960s.

When Studebaker closed its South Bend plant in 1963, it was the largest employer in St. Joseph County.

How New Carlisle Beat Other Sites

The Indiana Enterprise Center, a 7,200-acre mega-industrial park near New Carlisle, was designed specifically for projects like this.

A natural gas power plant next door provides the massive electricity these facilities require, and the area has no history of natural disasters.

Indiana also offered performance-based tax credits and training grants that helped seal the deal over competing locations.

Construction Rises, Then Slows

By mid-2025, construction was ahead of schedule with steel structures rising visibly from the highway. But in late October 2025, the pace changed.

Contractor Barton Malow confirmed layoffs at the site, though neither the company nor GM would say how many workers were let go.

Local officials said the pause came as engineers redesigned production lines based on lessons learned from a Samsung facility being built in Kokomo, which is about a year ahead in construction.

Amazon Is Building Next Door

Amazon Web Services opened an $11 billion AI data center on 1,200 acres adjacent to the battery plant site.

Construction began in September 2024 and seven buildings are already online, with the full site eventually spanning 30 buildings.

The data center represents the largest capital investment in Indiana history and will create at least 1,000 jobs.

At peak construction, more than 4,000 workers have been showing up daily in this town of under 2,000 people.

Officials Bet on the Long Game

Despite EV market uncertainty and federal policy shifts, local leaders remain confident.

St.Joseph County’s Bill Schalliol told reporters the plant will open by December 2027, even if the final product differs from the original blueprint.

When asked about the possibility of cancellation, he dismissed it: GM didn’t invest billions “to convert this into the world’s largest pickleball facility.”

What 1,700 Jobs Mean Here

The factory jobs are expected to pay an average hourly wage of $22.60, with total annual payroll exceeding $75 million.

For a county where the median household income hovers around $65,000, that’s a significant bump.

County officials expect the housing market to rise over the next two to three years as workers from both the GM plant and Amazon facility look for homes.

Local community colleges like Ivy Tech are already building training programs to prepare residents for the new jobs.

Indiana Becomes a Battery Belt State

New Carlisle is just one piece of Indiana’s EV manufacturing push.

Stellantis and Samsung SDI are building two battery plants in Kokomo totaling nearly $6 billion in investment and 2,800 jobs.

In Terre Haute, Oregon-based ENTEK is investing $1.5 billion in a battery separator factory that will employ over 600 workers.

When the New Carlisle plant reaches full production, GM will have a maximum battery capacity of 140 gigawatt hours per year in the U.S., compared to Ford’s planned 129 gigawatt hours.

A Farming Town Faces Its Future

Not everyone welcomes the changes. Town council president Marcy Kauffman said it’s difficult to keep losing farmland.

Longtime resident Dan Caruso worries this is just the beginning, recalling how friends warned him that once companies get a foothold, they’ll want more.

But the factories are coming whether the old-timers like it or not.

For a region that lost Studebaker 60 years ago, the GM-Samsung plant offers something rare: a second chance to build cars, or at least the batteries that power them.

Visiting New Carlisle, Indiana

The town sits about 20 minutes west of South Bend, home to the Studebaker National Museum where you can see the carriage Abraham Lincoln rode to Ford’s Theatre.

New Carlisle itself has been a trading center for nearly 200 years, with a historic downtown featuring locally owned restaurants, antique shops, and the Olive Township Library.

The New Carlisle Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. From Chicago, it’s about 90 miles east on the Indiana Toll Road.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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