Michigan wasted billions on EV subsidies that failed to create promised jobs, study says

Michigan spent nearly $2 billion in tax dollars to develop automotive jobs but has almost nothing to show for it, a shocking new report says.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy study found Gov. Gretchen Whitmer spent $1.8 billion in electric vehicle (EV) subsidies that never delivered the promised job growth.

“Whitmer claimed these signature deals were ‘generational,’” said report author James Hohman, Mackinac’s director of fiscal policy. “They would transform the entire state’s economy, she said, and they would usher in a future of prosperity.”

But despite the promise of more than 20,000 new jobs, only 600 have been created – a meager 3% of what was pledged.

In hindsight, such colossal failure is predictable, as most of the deals were related to EVs or electric batteries. And many were canceled or truncated after they were announced.

For example, Michigan offered Our Next Energy, a battery manufacturer, more than $200 million in 2022 for the promise of 2,100 new jobs.

However, in 2026, the company reported a decline in EV demand was forcing it to focus on different types of batteries and reduce its workforce by 45%.

Additionally, Michigan offered General Motors millions in subsidies and tax breaks to build a battery factory in Lansing and convert its Lake Orion plant for producing EV trucks.

However, GM later sold its interest in the battery factory and walked back its promise to produce EVs at Lake Orion. But it still received millions of Michiganders’ hard-earned tax dollars.

Similar waste occurred on the national scale.

The Biden administration spent $7.5 billion on EV charging stations, many of which were never built.

In late 2025, Ford conceded EVs were not profitable and changed its focus to hybrid and extended-range vehicles, writing off nearly $20 billion in EV spending. The company had received federal subsidies dating back to the Obama administration.

And General Motors similarly gave up on its promise to produce exclusively electric vehicles by 2035.

Voters should be skeptical, Hohman concluded, when government officials claim subsidies will produce significant economic growth.

“The state’s economic trends come from the decisions made by millions of people responding to their own opportunities and incentives,” he explained.

“It is difficult for even the $1.8 billion of subsidies spent on these projects over eight years to have a material difference on the state’s $730 billion-per-year economic production.”