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How a Chinese battery factory sparked a political meltdown in a small Michigan town
In the spring of 2024, Chuck Thelen came to an unpleasant conclusion: He would have to eat part of a battery. It was, he figured, maybe the only way to solve his problem.
Thelen, 59 at the time, has broad shoulders, graying short hair, and an assertive way of speaking that seems to come naturally to American executives. He was a vice president at the U.S. subsidiary of Gotion, a Chinese battery company that was trying to outcompete its peers by betting on overseas markets. With operations spread across the world, Gotion tasked Thelen with bringing the company’s first factory to America.
How a Chinese battery factory sparked a political meltdown in a small Michigan town
The Chinese company Gotion's EV battery plan was the kind of big, ambitious, the U.S. economy — and the struggling small town of Big Rapids — needed. But that’s not how some locals saw it. In this narrated feature Rest of World explores how ambitious executives at Gotion wanted to join America’s EV gold rush, but were met with geopolitics in rural Michigan, USA.
Written by Viola Zhou. Narrated by Jane Seidel.
Original story: https://restofworld.org/2025/gotion-ev-battery-us-expansion-backlash-michigan/
On its face, the expansion was a big, ambitious project, and exactly the kind of thing Michigan — and the U.S. economy — needed. The facility would bring an estimated 2,350 jobs and $2.3 billion of investment to a small college town called Big Rapids. Gotion would pay future workers in this semi-rural community some $62,000 a year, more than 50% higher than the local median household income. And a new plant would be aligned with the revival of U.S. manufacturing — a goal espoused by both Democrat and Republican politicians.
But that’s not how some locals saw it. In fact, they were furious. Hundreds of residents protested the factory: putting up yard signs, creating Facebook groups, and organizing rallies. Broadly calling themselves the “No Gos,” they claimed the chemicals produced from the plant would be toxic, and said the electric-vehicle revolution was a scam. They called Gotion’s Chinese ownership suspicious, and painted the battery plant as a Communist Trojan horse. Thelen became the face of the project. The No Gos called him “China Chuck.”
Caught up in America’s deepening political divide, the local spat quickly spiraled into a regional and then national media story. Washington politicians, from members of Congress to presidential candidates, called Gotion a Communist Party affiliate and a potential military espionage threat.
The story would grow like a weed, and evolve to embody, in part, how political divides can derail international investments in the U.S. It would also contrast how China’s one-party state is able to launch a world-leading EV sector in a matter of years with how similar efforts in the U.S. can stall in debates and disagreements about the needs and wants of any one community.
Since the fall of 2022, when the project was initially announced, Thelen had fought the detractors. He touted his hometown bonafides to win over the locals: He wrote about his Michigan upbringing in a local newspaper, had Gotion donate to local nonprofits, and debated the No Gos on the radio and at town meetings. In response, Thelen was booed and called a liar.
Finally, Thelen came up with a stunt to disprove at least one of the No Gos’ talking points. He would show that Gotion’s products were safe. And he would do that by eating the chemicals inside its batteries.
Thelen set his sights on a township board meeting scheduled for April 9, where the Pro Gos — residents in favor of Gotion — and No Gos would square off again. As the date approached, Thelen looked into lithium iron phosphate, the key component of Gotion’s EV batteries, to make sure this dark gray powder was non-toxic. He consulted Gotion’s researchers, read up on the substance’s safety guidelines, and even did a taste test in private. “It is tasteless,” he recalled in a subsequent radio interview, comparing it to corn starch.
On the day of the board meeting, in front of about 100 townspeople and at least one sign that read, “Gotion ‘the big lie,’” Thelen brought a jar of lithium iron phosphate to the podium. Grim-faced and wearing a navy blue suit, he poured out a small sample of the substance into a bottle for the audience to pass around. Then he began reading safety guidelines for handling it. “If you get it on the skin, wash it off,” he said. “If you get it in your mouth, drink plenty of water.”
Then, Thelen opened the jar again, this time dipping his index finger inside. “This is my finger,” he said, putting his finger in his mouth. A sucking sound was heard across the room. He raised his finger up high. “That’s how non-toxic this material is.”
The No Gos were not impressed.
Gotion was founded in 2006 in the eastern Chinese city of Hefei by Zhen Li, a civil servant turned property developer, who decided to bet his fortune on the country’s nascent battery industry. Li hired a dozen or so researchers to develop lithium iron phosphate batteries for EVs. For the first few years, Gotion’s batteries only powered electric bicycles, and the company struggled to turn a profit.
Then, in 2009, Gotion caught a lucky break: The Chinese government announced a monumental industrial policy called the Auto Industry Adjustment and Revitalization Plan, which would help turn the country into the world’s EV powerhouse. Under the initiative, China would build enough manufacturing capacity to produce 500,000 EVs and hybrids over the next two years. Concurrently, Beijing launched a “Ten Cities, Thousand Vehicles” program to encourage EV adoption across the public sector, rolling it out to 10 new cities every year. A flood of subsidies, loans, and local government orders promoting the EV industry followed.
Beijing selected Hefei to be one of the program’s first pilot cities — and Gotion secured a contract to produce batteries for the country’s first fleet of electric public buses. In public speeches, Li said his fleet demonstrated that electric buses could be a viable replacement for traditional buses nationwide. The gamble paid off. Gotion now operates 10 plants in China, making batteries for buses as well as passenger cars, and was valued at about $6 billion at the time of publication. In 2014, the company opened a research facility in Fremont, California — blocks away from a Tesla factory. Gotion now employs some 23,000 people worldwide.
Li, worth an estimated $1.2 billion, dresses in dark suits, wears thin-framed glasses, and peppers his speeches with quips on topics such as “the energy revolution” and “the scientific spirits.” The 60-year-old appears in public as a humble businessman, but is a demanding father to his son and heir apparent, Chen Li. The older Li also has a reputation for being particular: Gotion’s property designs incorporate the principles of feng shui. According to one former employee, Li insists that even the plants in the lobby of a Gotion office building are placed just so. He enjoys books about philosophy and history, and his favorite text is the Tao Te Ching, a 400 B.C. Taoist classic that promotes virtues such as simplicity and humility.
China’s battery industry is a crowded and highly competitive space. As EVs and other battery-powered devices took off over the past decade, two Chinese players emerged to dominate the market: CATL, which makes batteries for companies such as Volkswagen, BMW, and Tesla; and BYD, which started as a battery manufacturer and now sells more electrified cars than any other company in the world. Together, CATL and BYD produced more than half of the world’s EV batteries in the first half of 2024. Gotion came in 11th place in global market share, with 1.9%. The company’s batteries mostly go into cheap domestic Chinese brands, such as Geely and Chery.
Struggling to compete at home, Gotion’s Chairman Li set his eyes abroad. By manufacturing outside of China, Gotion would be closer to local automakers, benefit from local government subsidies, and dodge potential tariffs against Chinese imports. As part of a global expansion, in 2021, Gotion brought in Volkswagen as the company’s largest shareholder — and began sketching out factories and partnerships in Germany, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Around the same time, the Biden administration was spending billions of dollars to jumpstart the U.S.’ own EV revolution, and compete with China. To take advantage of the funds, international companies would have to build their batteries in the U.S., leading to a battery factory boom.
For a Chinese company to build a facility in the U.S. was risky — Chinese businesses are regularly scrutinized for Communist Party connections and ties to surveillance, espionage, or human rights violations. In 2022, Huawei was banned from selling telecoms equipment in the U.S. Proposals to ban messaging app WeChat and drone maker DJI have swirled continuously. TikTok has operated in the U.S. under the threat of a ban for nearly five years. More recently, the popularity of e-commerce sites Temu and Shein has prompted the U.S. to change its shipping rules.
“It’s really over the last several years that Americans have become obsessed with the CCP [Chinese Communist Party],” Meg Rithmire, a Harvard Business School professor who researches China’s political economy, told Rest of World. Rithmire said tightened party control over the Chinese society, state investments in strategic industries, and Beijing’s more aggressive foreign policy have all fueled a deep suspicion in the U.S. “There’s just this blurred boundary between firms and the state.”
No Chinese battery makers had attempted to build their own factories in the U.S., but Li was eager: Gotion could become one of America’s first local battery suppliers.
Gotion tapped Thelen, who had been with the company for just two years handling project management and operations, to set up an American factory. A 20-year veteran of Bosch, a German company that makes home appliances and auto parts, the Midwestern native had just the right experience to sell Americans on Gotion.
This past December, I flew to Michigan to find Chuck. The winter’s first snowstorm had just hit, and the landscape was covered in a thick blanket of snow. Temperatures hovered at minus 6 degrees Celsius (20 degrees Fahrenheit). Navigating my blue Nissan over frozen, bumpy country roads felt precarious. Whenever I stepped outside the car, a freezing wind stung my face.
Big Rapids is a college town. Shops selling chocolates, jewelry, and weed sit side-by-side in Victorian homes. It was a few weeks before Christmas, and wreaths and American flags hung from the street lamps. Students and teachers from Ferris State University, the city’s biggest employer, trudged in and out of coffee shops.
The surrounding area is home to small factories that make things like military boots and appliance parts. People hunt deer and raise chickens.
Thelen’s whole life seems circumscribed by this small pocket of Michigan. As a child, he spent family vacations in a cottage on Horsehead Lake, a scenic area 20 minutes from downtown. He went to Ferris State University, where he met and danced with his future wife, Tracey, at a downtown bar in 1990.
I’d been emailing Thelen for months, and getting no response. But on my first night in Big Rapids, in a cozy restaurant downtown, I ran into Tracey Thelen, Chuck’s wife, and Chuck’s niece. They were having cocktails at the bar. It underscored just how small Big Rapids is.
After I introduced myself, Tracey spoke of her husband endearingly and described him as “having a huge heart.” Something about the run-in unlocked an opportunity: Chuck Thelen agreed to give me 15 minutes on the phone.
Thelen’s tone on the call was initially diplomatic and stoic. Then, a sense of frustration and defiance crept into his voice: He talked about his admiration for Gotion’s Chairman Li, his commitment to a made-in-America movement, and complained about the disinformation being drummed up to destroy what he had been working for. “It has been truly difficult,” he said. But he said he had no regrets.
In mid-2021, Thelen started looking for a Gotion site where the company could produce lithium iron phosphate, the low-cost battery chemical increasingly favored by EV makers. He reviewed dozens of sites across the U.S. As he was driving through Big Rapids one day, Thelen later recounted, he saw an ad for available industrial land nearby. It occurred to him that he could bring the Gotion factory close to home.
Michigan’s rust-belt saga is well known by now. Mecosta County, home to Big Rapids, had an unemployment rate of 6.7% at the end of 2024, compared with the national average of about 4%. Some 7,300 people, or 18% of the population, lived below the poverty line in 2023. With a shortage of well-paying jobs, young people often commute hours to bigger cities, or move out entirely.
Thelen convinced his Gotion superiors that Big Rapids was an obvious choice for a factory: It had an ample pool of labor and a local university that could run training programs. In return, Gotion would bring good new jobs to the rural town. “I started this project because I thought it was the right thing for the community and the company,” Thelen told me.
Thelen encouraged Chairman Li to visit Big Rapids in July 2022. Li found the place to be too rural, according to a person familiar with the matter. But he eventually relented, possibly moved by a subsidies package offered by Michigan’s state government, and a chance to be close to Detroit’s “Big Three” automakers.
In September 2022, Michigan offered Gotion an incentive package that included a $125 million grant, depending on the company’s performance. Gotion would buy roughly 1 square kilometer (260 acres) of land. The first 500 local employees were expected to join by the end of 2024. Later on, the company would roll out a plan to set up an office in downtown Big Rapids.
City officials were ecstatic. The jobs Gotion promised would make it the biggest employer in the region. “It was in many ways a dream come true,” Jim Chapman, the former supervisor of Green Charter Township, where the Gotion site was located, told me. “Something we never expected just fell out of the sky.” Officials gave the development a nickname: Project Elephant.
The timing for Project Elephant couldn’t have been worse. Just as the agreement was put in place, in October 2022, U.S.-China relations reached a low point.
In February 2023, a mysterious Chinese balloon was spotted drifting across America, triggering nationwide anxiety over Beijing’s espionage campaign. In March 2023, as members of Congress grilled TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew on whether or not the Chinese government was using the app to spy on Americans, Thelen faced his own grilling in Michigan.
The Gotion factory had divided the small town into No Gos and Pro Gos, each with its own Facebook group and spokespeople. Friends quarreled and blocked one another. Shouting matches erupted at town meetings. Some of the No Gos initiated a boycott of businesses run by the Pro Gos.
For some No Gos, the concern over Gotion was tied to anxiety about the potential environmental impact of battery production. “My daughter will be riding the bus to school on an electric vehicle over my dead body,” Marjorie Steele, an environmentalist who opposed the Gotion plant, told me, arguing that EVs were dangerous and unreliable, especially during Michigan winters.
An April 2023 township meeting, which was moved to a playground to accommodate the large crowd, lasted more than two hours as No Gos took turns to speak out against the plant. One resident sang a song he wrote. The lyrics went: “We care about our environment, it’s causing commotion. Come on, baby, say no to Gotion.” The audience clapped.
Steele also expressed concern for how the facility could change Big Rapids. She said she was worried that an influx of foreign nationals would disrupt the area’s economy and culture. But the majority of the concerns weren’t about the environment or the community, per se, two local officials told me. They were about Gotion’s Chinese roots and a ginned-up panic that the company would bring communism to Big Rapids.
In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has increasingly pushed private companies to set up party branches. Business leaders commonly join the party to gain higher social status and build government connections. For the No Gos, this raised suspicion that Gotion was a tool for communist infiltration.
No Gos pointed to Gotion’s Community Party branch, footage of employees visiting party memorials in Red Army outfits, and executives attending political study meetings as corroborating evidence.
“We are America, and we don’t want communism here. Can you assure us of that?” Lori Brock, who runs a horse farm near Gotion’s factory site, asked Thelen on a radio show in spring 2023. Brock, a Donald Trump supporter, would emerge as a de facto spokesperson for the No Gos. She appeared in national media, met with politicians, and hosted rallies against Gotion on her farm. Brock and Thelen became archenemies.
Meanwhile the U.S. presidential election cycle was swinging into action, and the story of Michigan’s Gotion plant went national. Republican leaders blamed the Democrats for subsidizing a Communist Party-linked company. No Go rallies attracted characters like Congressman John Moolenaar, who currently represents Big Rapids and chairs a House committee focused on threats from China.
During a campaign speech in Michigan in June 2023, Trump called out Gotion’s Michigan plant as evidence that then-President Joe Biden’s EV push was benefiting China. “The cars don’t go far. The range is even worse in the winter. The materials are all made in China,” Trump said of EVs. “The state of Michigan, it’s going to be decimation.”
On our phone call, Thelen attributed resistance to Gotion to xenophobia, a not-in-my-backyard attitude among some residents, and a rise of McCarthy-style anticommunist panic. “I expected some, but the level of prejudice and the fact that they brought an entire political party in to fund their fight, that’s troublesome,” he told me.
Throughout 2023, Thelen defended the factory relentlessly. He presented himself as a husband, a father, and a “lifelong Michigander” who hunted, fished, and rode tractors on the weekend, just like everyone else. He argued the factory would lift people out of financial struggles. He addressed concerns regarding Gotion’s Chinese ownership by pointing out that members of the No Go group seemingly had no issue using iPhones, computers, and dishwashers — all made in China.
“The American flag proudly flies on the front porch of my house. And nothing has or could ever stop me from singing the national anthem for 18 years while I was coaching youth sports,” he told angry residents at one township meeting. “And I will be running this plant.”
That summer, Chairman Li came back to Michigan to inspect the proposed Gotion site, and maybe help drum up support. Thelen told me that Li was too busy to partake in hunting or fishing, but he took time to charm local officials with Chinese-style hospitality.
At a seafood restaurant in nearby Grand Rapids, Li and his subordinates, dressed in zipped-up jackets typical of Chinese politicians and businessmen, held a luncheon for Big Rapids officials and local leaders who supported the Gotion plant. Because of a tight schedule, lunch ended before dessert was served. As guests walked out, Li seemingly noticed an untouched tray of chocolate mousse, and took it upon himself to serve the Americans. The gesture had the intended effect. “He is the chairman of a huge mega corporation, and he treated us all just beautifully,” Fred Guenther, the mayor of Big Rapids who attended the gathering, told me. “He had me sold.”
For the No Gos, however, photos of Chinese executives driving around Big Rapids in a Mercedes-Benz only sparked more suspicion. In a recall election in November 2023, residents of Green Charter Township voted out five officials who supported the Gotion project, including supervisor Chapman.
Gotion fought back. In March 2024, the company sued the newly elected board, filled with No Go figures, saying the township had broken contracts by rescinding its support for the factory. It demanded the township comply with its obligations, including approving water system connections to the future plant.
Any construction on the plant itself seemed indefinitely stalled. Throughout it all, Thelen appeared calm and polite, even in the face of personal attacks. But in private, he was frustrated with what this project had devolved to. In Thelen’s texts to Chapman, made public as part of the lawsuit between Gotion and Green Charter Township, Thelen called the anti-Gotion people “knuckleheads.” After one township meeting, he texted Chapman, “What a group of ignorant racists.”
“This whole thing is literally the biggest test of stamina and patience I have ever endured,” Thelen texted Chapman at a different moment. “If it was not so important for the community I would have resigned this week.”
Meanwhile, Thelen put on a brave face: He ate lithium iron phosphate, and continued assuaging the locals. In April 2024, Thelen launched monthly “Chat with Chuck” virtual townhalls to address concerns about the factory. He talked about being in a “David versus Goliath” battle with “some extremists on the far right side” and their Republican Party backers.
But the No Go movement was only gaining power. In June 2024, five lawmakers, including now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio, accused Gotion of sourcing aluminum and other materials from firms connected to forced labor in Xinjiang. Gotion has denied any connections to forced labor. In August, now-Vice President JD Vance spoke at a campaign rally at Brock’s horse farm, and accused Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris of allowing the Communist Party to build factories in America. Some politicians even accused Gotion of possibly working with the Taliban to access lithium in Afghanistan — although the source they cited was about a company called Gochin, and Gotion says they are unrelated.
After July, the monthly “Chat with Chuck” sessions went on an indefinite hiatus.
Despite the company’s struggles in Michigan, Gotion and Chairman Li appeared undeterred in their quest to launch a U.S. plant. The company proceeded with a second effort at building a factory. This time, it would be led by Li’s son, Chen Li — a graduate of Purdue and Columbia, and an avid fan of Elon Musk.
This factory would cost $2 billion. Whereas the Michigan plant is intended to produce battery material, the Illinois factory will make finished goods: battery cells, modules, and packs for EVs and energy storage. Following months of location scouting, Gotion decided on a former Kmart warehouse in Manteno, Illinois, located about one hour outside Chicago. Compared with Big Rapids, the area was more liberal and less rural. It had a higher income level and a larger share of Black and Hispanic populations.
Gotion promised to hire 2,600 people. Illinois offered incentives valued at $536 million, with Governor JB Pritzker calling it the most significant new manufacturing investment in the state in decades.
Burned by its experience in Michigan, the company launched an aggressive charm offensive. In order to forge a good reputation from the start, Gotion arranged for dozens of county leaders, school officials, and newer employees to visit China over the course of multiple delegations. The visitors have toured factories, learned calligraphy, and hiked the Yellow Mountain, a local tourist attraction. At a banquet in Hefei, Li drank fiery baijiu liquor from thimble-sized glasses with his guests, and served them food, recalled one participant.
In the fall of 2024, Gotion sponsored a local Oktoberfest event in Manteno, where locals drank cocktails and got to check out the company’s batteries up close. The Kankakee Community College hosted Gotion recruitment events and is now planning to expand its internal combustion engine car workshop to include EVs, according to the school’s president, Michael Boyd.
A No Go campaign took shape in Manteno, too — but it didn’t derail the factory.
Tim Nugent, the mayor of Manteno, accompanied me on a tour of Kankakee Community College. He told me he was surprised by the national attention on the No Go movement. Nugent said he has been working hard to sell his community on the EV revolution. After the factory plan was announced, potential suppliers from China, Canada, and the Netherlands also inquired about factory sites in Manteno, he said. “I think history will show that it’s good for us,” he told me. “But history takes time.”
In December 2024, the Manteno community seemed to be gelling around the plant. Chinese and American workers had recently shared a Thanksgiving dinner, and launched a Gotion rock band. By early 2025, two production lines for energy storage batteries had gone into operation. Close to 150 people had been hired. “This factory is not just being pulled up from China and set down in America. It’s full of American people,” Andrew Wheeler, the factory’s head of public relations, told me.
Mark Kreusel, head of the Manteno plant, came to Gotion after 30 years with Chrysler. He told me he was impressed by the Li family’s commitment to sustainability. “I think [Gotion’s Chairman Li] is probably the bravest Chinese businessman out there, because he’s the only one that was willing to stick his neck out and invest in America when everybody else was afraid to,” he said. “Just because governments have differences doesn’t always mean companies and people have to have differences.”
When I asked Gotion for interviews with the chairman, a representative at the Chinese headquarters declined, explaining that the company was moving quietly given the current political climate. I asked the chairman’s son, Chen Li, about the challenges Gotion faced overseas. He offered a one-line response over text: “We are now a global company, and should not be defined as a Chinese company with 100% Chinese ownership.”
In Big Rapids, on a Thursday in early December, the site that Gotion purchased for its plant was eerily quiet. I toured the site with Marjorie Steele, the activist who was committed to safeguarding the local ecology from a giant factory. More than two years after the project was announced, there was little progress to see here: The land was still mostly forest and wetland, covered in snow and fresh deer tracks. Locals say the land is also frequented by owls, bats, and the rare bobcat.
The company did manage to cut down some trees, which did not escape Steele’s notice. Pointing out the felled beech trees, she yelled, “God damn Chuck!” into the woods.
Downtown, the former JCPenney department store that Gotion leased to be its office building was still empty. Although Gotion won a court ruling in May 2024 to continue developing its factory, officials at Green Charter Township said they had not received any new permit applications.
During our call, Thelen told me Gotion had not abandoned the project, but that legal proceedings would take time. Despite resistance from Republican Party heavyweights, Thelen said he hoped Trump would come around to support Gotion. “As much as I might disagree with the other politicians, I can say wholeheartedly I do agree with President-elect Trump, and you need to localize the manufacturing for these products,” he told me. Gotion in Big Rapids, Thelen insisted, could still be a success story. “We’ve got some politics that got in the way. And really there is no need for politics in this situation.”
As Gotion’s battle in Michigan quietly grinds on, EV adoption has continued to rise globally, partly thanks to cheaper, better-performing batteries: In 2024, more than 17 million EVs were sold worldwide, 25% more than the previous year. Gotion’s global expansion is moving ahead as well. It opened its German factory in 2023. In June 2024, the company announced gigafactory plans in both Morocco and Slovakia. The Morocco factory, expected to begin production in 2026, could make some of the battery chemicals that were supposed to come from Michigan.
And Gotion is clearly proud of its progress in Illinois. When I dropped by the company’s California office in December, a TV in the reception area played a promo video about the facility on repeat.
But Big Rapids may not be part of the EV revolution. Before I left the town, I visited Brock, the horse farmer and leader of the No Go group. She was triumphant: Detroit News had named her “Michiganian of the Year” for her activism against Gotion. For Christmas, she made ornaments in the shape of mini red trucks — each carrying a “No Go on Gotion” sign and an American flag — as gifts to fellow No Gos.
As we sat in her living room, a herd of deer ran across the field outside her window. She listed the Republican leaders she had met with, and showed me the provocative emails she had sent to Chen Li following Trump’s victory. “You are not wanted here!!!!” she wrote in one email. “Trump will never allow you to do business here.”
But the person she had the most disdain for was Chuck Thelen. It was Thelen who defended a “Communist company,” she said. It was Thelen she confronted directly at town meetings. And it was Thelen’s wife, Tracey, with whom she developed an online beef. By fighting Thelen, Brock told me, she was protecting America from a repressed, Communist way of life. She was proud of stalling Gotion, and everything it represented, maybe indefinitely.
Brock recalled Thelen’s battery-chemical eating stunt dismissively. She didn’t believe that the chemicals he put in his mouth were real. Following the demonstration, Brock said, she prepared her own samples of lithium, magnesium, and cobalt for Thelen to taste. “I wanted him to take a tablespoon of each one and drink it,” she said. “And he wouldn’t do it.”
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