Ultium Cells LLC, the joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution, laid off 1,334 hourly workers at its Lordstown, Ohio EV battery cell plant effective January 5, 2026. The WARN notice was filed October 29, 2025, giving the federally required 60 days of advance notice. All of those cut are members of UAW Local 1112, the same local that represented the workforce of GM's old Lordstown Assembly plant before it closed in 2019. The Lordstown battery plant employed roughly 1,700 hourly workers before the reduction, meaning the cut hit about 78 percent of the plant's UAW workforce.
| Department | Employees | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Battery assembly operators | 1,090 | 82% |
| Materials | 142 | 11% |
| Quality | 102 | 8% |
| Total | 1,334 | 100% |
Of the 1,334 affected workers, 850 were placed on temporary layoff with no return date specified, and 484 were placed on indefinite layoff with no callback plans. The temporary versus indefinite split matters because under the UAW master agreement, indefinite layoffs trigger supplemental unemployment benefits and SUB pay obligations, while a temporary layoff designation leaves the door open for partial recall if demand recovers. The lack of a callback date on either category is the harder signal here.
Ultium Cells is a 50/50 joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution that operates three US cell manufacturing plants: Lordstown, Ohio; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and the under-construction Lansing, Michigan site. The plants supply battery cells for GM's Ultium platform vehicles, including the Chevrolet Blazer EV, Cadillac Lyriq, and the Silverado EV. When the JV was announced in late 2019 the plants were positioned as the centerpiece of GM's all-electric future.
That demand signal reversed in 2025. GM CEO Mary Barra acknowledged the company was "assessing our EV capacity and manufacturing footprint" as anticipated EV sales slowed. GM took a $1.6 billion charge in Q3 2025 against expected EV losses, and the federal Inflation Reduction Act EV tax credit was eliminated in late 2025, removing roughly $7,500 of consumer subsidy per qualifying vehicle. Changes to federal fuel economy standards and the credit elimination together cut EV demand projections sharply, and Ultium Cells was the first major battery manufacturing facility to take the headcount hit.
On the same day, January 5, 2026, GM separately laid off approximately 1,140 hourly workers at Factory Zero, the GM-direct Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant that builds the Hummer EV, Silverado EV, Sierra EV, and Cadillac Escalade IQ. The Factory Zero reduction is tracked under General Motors as a separate entity. Combined, GM-related EV and EV-battery layoffs on January 5, 2026 totaled roughly 2,475 workers, the single largest one-day EV manufacturing reduction in US history.
Ultium Cells LLC is a distinct legal entity. It is a joint venture with shared ownership between GM and LG Energy Solution, has its own employer identification, files its own WARN notices, has its own UAW bargaining unit, and operates plants that LG Energy Solution co-funded. Treating these cuts as a generic "GM layoff" understates the scale of the EV demand reset and obscures the fact that the battery cell supply chain, not just final assembly, is what is being scaled back. The Lordstown plant was the first Ultium Cells plant to come online in 2022; it is now the first to scale down.
The Lordstown site has a difficult history. GM closed its 53-year-old Lordstown Assembly plant in 2019, ending production of the Chevrolet Cruze and cutting roughly 1,500 jobs. The community recovered when Ultium Cells opened on a portion of the same site in 2022, bringing back UAW Local 1112 representation. The January 2026 reduction wipes out the bulk of that recovery and leaves the Mahoning Valley region facing a second EV-related manufacturing contraction in seven years.
The Ultium Cells cut is the largest single-site EV battery manufacturing layoff in the US to date and is the leading indicator of broader battery supply chain right-sizing. Stellantis paused construction on its Kokomo, Indiana StarPlus Energy JV with Samsung SDI. Ford delayed full-rate production at its BlueOval SK Battery Park in Kentucky. Honda and LG Energy Solution slowed timelines at their Jeffersonville, Ohio JV. The federal EV tax credit elimination has reset the entire US battery manufacturing buildout that was financed on assumed 2030 demand curves that no longer exist.
Sources: WFMJ · Business Journal Daily · WKBN · WFMJ (Oct 2025) · Fox 8
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