DOE Pulls Plug on Chinese-Owned Company’s Grant Application Months After Alarm Raised

A worker’s reflection on a mirror framing a lithium ion battery production line at a plant in Huzhou, China, owned by Microvast Holdings, whose Texas-based subsidiary qualified to negotiate for a $200 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to build lithium batteries in the United States. Stringer/Reuters

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was never quite clear on why it allowed a Texas subsidiary of a Chinese-owned battery manufacturer to qualify as a grant applicant, even after the company’s links to the Chinese Communist Party were revealed during the department’s own vetting process.

The DOE was equally opaque in curtly announcing on the evening of May 22 that it had reversed its decision and that Microvast Holdings is no longer qualified to apply and negotiate for grants under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL).