Free Republic

A Kentucky congressman responded to Andy Beshear Tuesday, days after Kentucky's governor blamed him for sweeping layoffs at an electric vehicle battery plant in his district. BlueOval SK said roughly 1,500 people at its Glendale plant would be laid off as Ford takes sole ownership of the facility after a partnership with a South Korean company fell through. Last week Beshear said U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie, a Republican who represents Kentucky’s second congressional district, was partially to blame for any job losses due to his support for President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill." Beshear said Guthrie made no changes to...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (KT) – Gov. Andy Beshear took to social media on Friday to respond to news reports that production at one of two electric vehicle (EV) battery plants planned for Hardin County has been delayed because of concerns about demand. The plants are being built by BlueOval SK, a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and South Korean partner SK Innovation. “First, the full project is still on. Construction is continuing on both of those battery plants,” said Beshear in a video posted on social media. “The two biggest battery plants on planet Earth and all of the hundreds...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- All 1,600 employees of the brand new electric vehicle battery plant in Kentucky will be laid off before Ford converts it to manufacture batteries for data centers and other utilities. Ford will turn the Glendale factory into a battery-storage business for customers such as utilities, wind- and solar-power developers, and massive data centers that train artificial intelligence, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. And Ford announced Monday it plans to begin shipping the battery energy storage systems from its Kentucky and Michigan plants in Late 2027, a shift to "higher-return opportunities." In total, the company said...

China has emerged as the most prolific intelligence threat to U.S. having engaged in corporate espionage, intellectual-property theft, and personnel information breaches going back decades. A naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated from China has been sentenced to four years in prison after conspiring to act as a agent of the Chinese government, highlighting the broad reach of Beijing’s security service and strategy of co-opting immigrants for intelligence gathering, according to the Justice Department. The plea agreement and court filings announced Monday show China’s Ministry of State Security – the Communist-run country's intelligence service – used operative Peng Li as a...

“The Supreme Power cannot take from any Man any part of his Property without his own consent. For the preservation of Property being the end of Government, and that for which Men enter into Society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the People should have Property, without which they must be supposed to lose that by entering into Society, which was the end for which they entered into it, too gross an absurdity for any Man to own. Men therefore in Society having Property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the Law of the Community are...

Reuters sources inside Nissan are saying the production of batteries inTennessee for the all-electric Leaf, which stimulus-subsidizing U.S. taxpayers backed with a $1.4 billion loan, could be eliminated. According to the report, at minimum there is sharp debate over whether the company will continue to manufacture electric vehicle batteries in-house or contract with an outside supplier. Nissan partner Renault, which has 43.4 percent shareholder ownership in the joint company, is said to be pushing for outsourcing battery production – possibly to LG Chem. None who revealed the information were identified for the Reuters story. “We set out to be...

Only a year after Tesla Motors and CEOElon Musk extracted themselvesfrom the $465-million taxpayerstimulus loan that brought critical scrutiny to the company’s performance, the electric automaker has once again put itself under the spotlight that comes with taking government corporate welfare. Today the company will announce its plans to build a battery manufacturing plant near Reno . The new gambit was the culmination of competition that pitted at least five states against one another for the “privilege” of hosting Tesla’s “Gigafactory” – named so because of the amount of stored power they plan to produce. Cost to build the...

RENO, Nev. – Tesla Motors has chosen Nevada as the site for a massive, $5 billion factory that will pump out batteries for a new generation of electric cars, a person familiar with the company's plans said Wednesday. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no official announcement had been made, said work would soon resume at an industrial park outside Reno. Four other states -- California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico -- were vying for the project and the estimated 6,500 jobs it will bring.