Clean-tech cancellations outstripped new investments in Q2
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Cancellation of clean tech manufacturing plans outpaced new investment announcements in Q2, Rhodium Group and MIT analysts report.
Why it matters: It's the first time scuttled projects exceeded new manufacturing plans, which are also declining, in tracking data that dates to 2018.
- The pullback occurred as Capitol Hill Republicans were crafting bills to pare back Biden-era incentives in what became the new budget law.
Driving the news: Developers axed roughly $5 billion worth of manufacturing investments in Q2, while companies announced $4B in new projects.
- That $4B is a 59% drop from Q1 2025 and a 44% decline from Q2 2024.
- Scuttled EV and battery manufacturing plans are the bulk of cancellations in 2025 amid Trump 2.0 moves to end EV incentives.
- Q2 data includes GM shifting away from plans to make EVs at Michigan's Orion Assembly Plant.
State of play: Policy changes "certainly factored into" the decline in new project announcements and scrapping others, Rhodium associate director Hannah Hess said via email.
- "While the quarter ended before the final [budget law] passed and was signed by the president, proposals to terminate tax credits for clean vehicles and implement harsh restrictions on materials from Foreign Entities of Concern were making waves for much of the quarter," she said.
- Q2 had the lowest new battery and EV manufacturing announcements since early 2021.
Zoom out: The "Clean Investment Monitor" tracks both announcements and actual money spent on manufacturing; energy production and industrial emissions-cutting projects; and retail home and business purchases.
- Those actual investments last quarter totaled $68B, same as the prior three months.
- Retail consumer purchases and installations — think EVs, heat pumps, rooftop solar and more — were half the total.
- "The pipeline of new project announcements contracted across segments," including utility-scale solar, the report states.
What we're watching: The next waves of data as buyers rush to capture vanishing EV incentives, and solar developers look to tap credits before they sunset under the budget law.
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