Kempower’s much-hyped hiring plans in Durham have hit a wall. The Finnish maker of high-speed electric-vehicle chargers has told North Carolina officials it will not reach the roughly 300 jobs it once promised for its local plant and has asked the state to pull the plug on its job-development incentive. The Economic Investment Committee has now formally canceled the company’s Job Development Investment Grant after Kempower requested termination, and company leaders say hiring is paused while they reassess U.S. demand.
In a June 30 grant-termination request to the N.C. Department of Commerce, Kempower North America president Monil Malhotra wrote that “following the expiration of key federal EV tax incentives, EV registrations declined significantly, causing several commercial and municipal customers to defer charging infrastructure projects.” He added that the company had “temporarily paused planned hiring” and ended June with “just over 100 employees” at its Durham facility, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.
How the Incentive Was Supposed to Work
The Job Development Investment Grant, or JDIG, is a performance-based rebate that returns a slice of payroll withholding taxes only after a company hits specific hiring and wage benchmarks. Kempower’s award, announced when the company chose Durham in 2023, was tied to a roughly $41 million investment and authorized potential reimbursements of about $3 million over a 12-year term, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce.
The Jobs Targets Kempower Will Not Hit
Under its state agreement, Kempower committed to year-by-year hiring benchmarks. The company has since told officials it will not meet those milestones, and the News & Observer reports the grant required at least 156 jobs by the end of 2025 and 196 jobs by the end of 2026 at an average salary of about $86,000. Kempower began shipping chargers from its Durham facility in late 2023 after opening the plant, but officials say the company never received JDIG payments because awards are only paid after verified performance. The Raleigh News & Observer and company materials both note the early production and local operation.
EV Market Headwinds Behind the Hiring Freeze
Kempower and other equipment makers say a sharper-than-expected pullback in U.S. EV demand after the expiration of federal purchase incentives has pushed some commercial and municipal charging projects down the road. Industry registration data reported by trade outlets show U.S. EV registrations plunged in early 2026 compared with a year earlier, a trend analysts tied to the end of federal tax credits and to slower buyer demand, according to InsideEVs.
What It Means for Durham
Durham economic-development leaders had touted the plant as a high-wage clean-tech win when the project was first unveiled. Now they are left with a reminder that incentive-driven projects can shift quickly as markets change. The state’s JDIG program is explicitly performance-based, so canceling a grant at a company’s request typically means no incentive payments flow unless benchmarks were actually met, in line with program rules and state documentation.
For now, Kempower says it will keep operating in Durham while it adjusts hiring plans, and the state returns to its usual verification and reporting schedule for award outcomes. The episode highlights both the volatility of the fast-growing EV supply chain and the limits of incentives that rely on multi-year demand forecasts.
