Four years ago, central Michigan was promised a $2.36 billion battery-component plant and 2,350 jobs. What’s left is roughly 270 acres of farmland and a recalled township board. The lawsuit never reached a trial; it ended in settlement talks.
What Michigan put on the table
The Sixth Circuit’s February opinion lays out the history.
- In September 2022, Gotion Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Chinese battery maker Gotion High-Tech, secured state grants for land, infrastructure, permitting and wetland mitigation.
- Green Charter Township, Mecosta County and the City of Big Rapids added a $540 million local tax incentive package.
- In July 2023, Gotion picked the site from 56 candidates. State and local incentives combined totaled $715 million.
- In August 2023, the township board signed a Development Agreement promising to help Gotion obtain permits. That same month, Gotion paid $24 million for nearly 270 acres.
The court noted the timing: all of this followed the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, whose tax incentives set off a wave of clean-energy manufacturing investment.
How it fell apart
Voters recalled the township board in November 2023. All five replacement members had campaigned on blocking the project.
According to the appeals court, the new board rescinded two resolutions the project needed. When Gotion took its site plan to the county instead, the township stripped Mecosta County of its zoning authority over the township. It then threatened to sue the county if it processed the application, and the county cancelled its review.
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Gotion sued in March 2024 and won a preliminary injunction that May. The court ordered the township to honor the agreement.
The injunction didn’t save the project. Gotion’s grant agreements with the state required progress on infrastructure and site development by set deadlines. On September 17, 2025, the Michigan Strategic Fund declared Gotion in default because “no Eligible Activities” had happened on the property for more than 120 consecutive days. On January 30, 2026, the state demanded the $23.7 million back. The court noted that total state funding could have reached $175 million.
Gotion then admitted in its own appellate brief that the project “is no longer viable.” The Sixth Circuit dismissed the township’s appeal as moot. The court pointed out that Gotion missed the state’s deadlines even with an injunction in hand and no stay in place.
Gotion’s next step was to say it would seek monetary damages from the township.
How it ended
That damages fight went to settlement talks. The district court docket in Gotion, Inc. v. Green Charter Township (W.D. Mich., No. 1:24-cv-00275) shows settlement conferences before Magistrate Judge Phillip J. Green on September 25 and October 2. The proceedings were stayed while the parties negotiated.
On October 23, U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, who represents the area and led opposition to the plant, issued a statement celebrating the outcome. He also conceded the financial result: Michigan taxpayers “will not receive restitution from the state subsidies Gotion refused to pay back.”
The state wanted its $23.7 million back. Moolenaar says it won’t get it.
Why car people should care
This wasn’t an assembly plant. It was a battery-component factory, the kind of upstream supplier that makes battery materials before anyone builds a cell or a car. That supply-chain gap is a big reason EVs still cost more than gas cars of similar size, and it’s why states were willing to pay so much to fill it.
Gotion shows what goes wrong when the money moves before the building does.
A development agreement signed by one township board held up in court. It still couldn’t make a plant viable once the politics turned and the state’s deadlines slid past.
Moolenaar’s office says his “NO GOTION” policy, which became law in 2025, was meant to keep companies like Gotion from collecting federal clean-energy incentives. If a battery maker’s economics lean on those credits, ownership questions can sink a project before anyone pours concrete.
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The incentives were priced for a factory, and the $23.7 million the state demanded back isn’t coming.
What happens next
The parties still have to file the formal settlement. The public docket shown hadn’t been updated after October 15. The terms will matter for Green Charter Township, which spent more than two years in federal court over a contract a previous board signed.
Announcing a battery plant is easy. Getting one built takes a township that stays put and deadlines a company can actually hit. With $715 million in combined incentives on the table, who should have noticed that nothing was moving on that land for 120 days?