July 2, 2026 · Kosciusko · Vanderburgh · Boone · Tippecanoe

Slate Auto's Battery Pivot, Lilly's FDA PreCheck Win, and Indiana Supplier Risk in 2028

Slate Auto's Gotion battery swap, Lilly's FDA PreCheck win, and an SK Hynix credential gap, four Indiana supply chain tests operators need to act on now.

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Four Indiana developments this week share a single pressure point on supplier risk and workforce positioning: whether your contracts, pipelines, and regulatory alignments are being built for the employers arriving in 2028, or only for the ones you already know. Warsaw, Lebanon, Evansville, and Greater Lafayette each have a piece of that test. Here's what operators across Kosciusko, Boone, Vanderburgh, and Tippecanoe counties need to act on this morning.

01Statewide

Slate Auto's Gotion Battery Swap Creates Indiana Supplier Risk for Warsaw Facilities

Slate Auto's Warsaw plant now has more than 180,000 reservations for its $24,950 Slate Truck, but the company quietly dropped SK On NMC battery chemistry and sourced LFP cells from Gotion's Illinois facility instead, cutting battery costs roughly 40% and extending range from 150 to 205 miles. Gotion is a Hefei-based company; the House Select Committee on the CCP raised national security concerns about Gotion's Michigan manufacturing project in 2023, and that Congressional exposure has not been resolved.

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02Boone

Eli Lilly Lebanon Lands One of Seven FDA PreCheck Slots Nationwide

The FDA received more than 80 applications for its new PreCheck pilot and awarded seven slots. Eli Lilly's active pharmaceutical ingredient plant under construction in Lebanon, Boone County, is one of them.

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Two More Developments Worth Watching

Southwest Indiana's Teacher Manufacturing Bootcamp placed 16 educators from Gibson, Posey, Warrick, and Vanderburgh counties on plant tours at Toyota, Kaiser Aluminum, Amcor, Alcoa, and SABIC in June. Amcor absorbed Berry Global, a founding grant sponsor of the program, and that commitment has not been publicly confirmed as preserved. If it drops, the program shrinks or goes looking for WIOA dollars at exactly the moment Toyota Indiana's $200 million Grand Highlander expansion is adding hiring pressure a 16-person annual cohort can't meet alone.

Greater Lafayette's Robotics in Manufacturing Camp grew from 66 students in 2019 to 361 last summer, a real early-pipeline achievement. But SK Hynix's $3.87 billion CHIPS Act-backed semiconductor packaging plant targets West Lafayette production by late 2028 and requires cleanroom and advanced packaging credentials that no K-12 robotics camp is designed to produce. That's Ivy Tech Lafayette and Purdue Polytechnic territory. The question is whether those programs are building the specific certificate stack SK Hynix's 2028 ramp actually requires, and on what timeline.

Questions for Your Morning Huddle

Q: What should Warsaw-area suppliers do right now given Slate Auto's Gotion battery sourcing?
A: Audit your single-source foreign suppliers against a 90-day forced re-sourcing scenario. If Slate is a meaningful share of your forward order book, the Gotion Congressional exposure is a planning assumption, not a background risk.

Q: What does Lilly's FDA PreCheck win mean for contractors already on the Lebanon campus?
A: Factor FDA pre-submission timelines into your delivery schedule now. PreCheck reduces the tail risk of a delayed approval stretching your payment schedule, and it's a concrete talking point for your existing lender conversations.

Q: Are Indiana workforce programs producing the credentials SK Hynix will actually need in 2028?
A: Probably not yet. Cleanroom and advanced semiconductor packaging credentials are Ivy Tech Lafayette and Purdue Polytechnic territory, the question is whether those programs are building the specific certificate stack SK Hynix's 2028 ramp requires, and on what timeline.

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