If Detroit was the auto manufacturing capital of the world through much of the 20th century, Indiana was a leader in providing parts for the production of those vehicles.
Cities across the Hoosier state delivered headlights, batteries and engine components for The Big Three manufacturers for decades on end. It was a natural for Indiana industry. After all, the automobile’s birth can be traced here.
On his recent visit to Kokomo, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg recalled Elwood Haynes, the Kokomo inventor and industrialist who established the world’s first profitable automobile mass production line.
Looking both back and ahead, Buttigieg was touting the birth of the electric vehicle era and Indiana’s pivotal position in it. Two state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery facilities, representing a combined investment of $5.7 billion, are under construction in Kokomo, and other projects related to EV production are underway in other communities across the state.
Buttigieg said Indiana’s important role in the fledgling EV industry signals a sea change in the state’s economy, ushering in a new era.
Instead of the Rust Belt, the Hoosier state and its neighbors, he said, are gaining a new identity: the Battery Belt.
“I couldn’t be more excited about the moment that we’re in and the turnaround a place like Howard County, Indiana, has seen, the future that is in front of us and the innovation we have to come,” said Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend.
On a tour of the Midwest to promote the impact — $500 billion invested so far — of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Law, Buttigieg checked out Stellantis’ Kokomo engine plant and visited the local Ivy Tech Community College campus, where he praised the collaboration to train workers for local jobs in the EV industry.
State and local economic development officials have worked hard to make sure that Indiana communities are positioned to ride the crest of the EV revolution, and Hoosiers will surely reap the benefits of new jobs and quality-of-life improvements that accompany expanding tax bases.
The state, remembering both the halcyon days of the auto parts industry and the decline of such manufacturing across the Midwest, must also continue to strive for economic diversification.
The Battery Belt has a nice ring to it. But we need a generation of modern-day Elwood Hayneses across the cutting edge of manufacturing and technology to continue creating crucial niches for Indiana in a brave new world of research, development and production.
© 2025 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.