Conversion Over Cancellation
E2 counted 54 cancellations, closures, and downsizings through mid-June, $18.2 billion in lost investment. The more consequential 2026 pattern is conversion: physically real, often financed assets whose ownership, product, chemistry, financing obligor, or workforce basis has changed from the original announcement. Five distinct dimensions. Ford Kentucky changed its obligor, product, and application in separate events sourced to separate filings. Spring Hill changed chemistry (NCMA to LFP), application (EV to ESS), and workforce simultaneously. De Soto announced a product conversion with no chemistry change.
Each dimension carries different implications for counterparty risk, qualification timelines, and PFE/MACR compliance under Notice 2026-15. A converted GWh is not usable supply until it clears each relevant proof state. Cancellations measure what disappeared. Conversions, disaggregated by dimension, determine what 2027–2028 domestic supply actually looks like. This issue does that work.
StarPlus Energy Is Converting Everything at Once. The Evidence Trail Is Thin.
StarPlus Energy's Kokomo facilities were announced as a $6.3B Samsung SDI/Stellantis EV battery program backed by a $7.54B DOE conditional commitment. Since Q4 2025, Samsung SDI says it has been converting lines to ESS, pivoting from NCA to LFP, and contracting Korean cathode from L&F—starting 2027. The LFP mass production target is Q4 2026, at least two quarters before contracted cathode flows. Independent confirmation of the conversion's physical progress: none located. The corporate frame holding all of this together has not changed. What it contains has.
StarPlus Energy Is Converting Everything at Once. The Evidence Trail Is Thin.
StarPlus Energy's Kokomo facilities were announced as a $6.3B Samsung SDI/Stellantis EV battery program backed by a $7.54B DOE conditional commitment. Since Q4 2025, Samsung SDI says it has been converting lines to ESS, pivoting from NCA to LFP, and contracting Korean cathode from L&F—starting 2027. The LFP mass production target is Q4 2026, at least two quarters before contracted cathode flows. Independent confirmation of the conversion's physical progress: none located. The corporate frame holding all of this together has not changed. What it contains has.
US Battery Capacity Is Changing What It Serves
E2 counts 54 US clean energy manufacturing cancellations, closures, and downsizings through June 2026, representing $18.2 billion in lost investment. The aggregate captures genuine losses. It does not capture facilities that changed ownership, chemistry, or end-market application while retaining physical capacity. Underneath the cancellation count, five US cell facilities disclosed such changes during 2025–2026. Four of five moved toward stationary storage. Four of five moved toward LFP. Two dissolved their original JV structures. The nameplate GWh survived, but what those GWh actually produce now serves markets that no longer substitute for each other.
US Battery Capacity Is Changing What It Serves
E2 counts 54 US clean energy manufacturing cancellations, closures, and downsizings through June 2026, representing $18.2 billion in lost investment. The aggregate captures genuine losses. It does not capture facilities that changed ownership, chemistry, or end-market application while retaining physical capacity. Underneath the cancellation count, five US cell facilities disclosed such changes during 2025–2026. Four of five moved toward stationary storage. Four of five moved toward LFP. Two dissolved their original JV structures. The nameplate GWh survived, but what those GWh actually produce now serves markets that no longer substitute for each other.
How Conversion Events Break the 45X MACR Documentation Chain
IRS Notice 2026-15's MACR requirements turned 45X compliance documentation into a capital asset. Supplier certifications signed under perjury, constituent-material tracing, six-year retention: the file is what makes $35/kWh claimable. Chemistry switches reset it almost completely. Ownership transfers sever the taxpayer link. Product shifts from EV to ESS can preserve it, unless they coincide with the other two. With SEC-disclosed restructurings accelerating across the US battery manufacturing base in H1 2026, this piece maps exactly which MACR chain links break under each conversion type and how long the credit gap lasts.
How Conversion Events Break the 45X MACR Documentation Chain
IRS Notice 2026-15's MACR requirements turned 45X compliance documentation into a capital asset. Supplier certifications signed under perjury, constituent-material tracing, six-year retention: the file is what makes $35/kWh claimable. Chemistry switches reset it almost completely. Ownership transfers sever the taxpayer link. Product shifts from EV to ESS can preserve it, unless they coincide with the other two. With SEC-disclosed restructurings accelerating across the US battery manufacturing base in H1 2026, this piece maps exactly which MACR chain links break under each conversion type and how long the credit gap lasts.
Conversion and Status Tracker
