Four months after it opened with promises of stable, high-paying factory jobs, a $5.8 billion Ford-backed battery plant in Kentucky is sitting idle - and 1,600 workers are out of work. Ford and South Korean battery manufacturer SK On opened the sprawling 1,500-acre site in Glendale in summer 2025, and it was hailed as a game changer for the region. By December, that optimism had evaporated when the companies ended their joint venture at the site. Soon after, Ford said it would idle the facility for roughly 18 months while shifting production toward energy storage systems instead of car batteries. Ford says the slowdown in EV demand - blamed in part with changes in federal policy under President Donald Trump - upended the company's original plans.