Somewhere in Kentucky, a multi-billion dollar battery plant is running equipment and shipping finished cells over bridges that, on average, were built for a country with a fraction of today's freight volume. BlueOval SK's battery park in Glendale and Ultium Cells' expanding Midwest footprint represent the leading edge of the electric vehicle transition, and every one of them depends on a highway and bridge network that has not been substantially rebuilt since the interstate system's original construction. The future of mobility is being built directly on top of infrastructure the country has spent decades deferring maintenance on.
The Grid Problem Nobody Budgeted For
Start with the part everyone already senses: the grid is straining. Transformer lead times, once about a year, now stretch to five years, and prices are up more than 50 percent since 2021. North American and European demand outpaced supply by 38 percent in 2025, and the backlog is projected to reach more than three times a full year's supply capacity by 2030. Data centers, growing at 16 percent a year, could account for roughly 70 percent of North America's power demand growth. EV adoption, growing at over 20 percent a year, adds another major load on top of it. This is the visible half of the electrification story.
The Invisible Half Is Concrete and Steel
The less visible half is what carries the equipment in and the product out. The American Society of Civil Engineers grades US bridges a C, with 6.8 percent in poor condition and 45 percent of the country's 623,218 bridges past their original 50 year design life. Bringing the system into good repair carries a $191.3 billion price tag today and a $373 billion funding gap over the next ten years. Nearly 4.9 billion vehicle trips cross these bridges daily, a number that includes every heavy-haul shipment of battery cells, transformers, and grid equipment moving toward the plants building the electrified future.
Two Investments, One Corridor
This is the contradiction sitting inside every EV and grid headline: the newest technology in the American economy depends entirely on the oldest infrastructure to reach the ground. Real estate positioned along the highway and bridge corridors serving battery and grid manufacturing benefits twice, once from the private capital already committing to plants like BlueOval SK and Ultium, and a second time from the public infrastructure spending that has to follow it, because the roads and bridges those plants depend on cannot keep deferring maintenance indefinitely once billions in private capital are routing through them daily.
What This Means for the Corridor
Kentucky and Indiana are not accidental locations for this investment. They sit on the interstate and rail corridors this entire thesis is built around, the same corridors carrying the freight, the agricultural inputs, and now the battery inputs that keep this region's industrial base running. The infrastructure gap is real. So is the case for owning workforce housing and industrial space next to the plants and highways it will eventually be spent to fix.
Draymoor Ventures is seeking cash-flowing workforce multifamily, sized between 4 and 70 units, across the Indianapolis, Columbus, and Louisville metros, priced to work on today's rent roll rather than tomorrow's projection.
If your property already houses the people keeping this region's freight and manufacturing base running, we want to understand the deal.
Share an opportunity: Steven@DraymoorVentures.com
Sources
McKinsey & Company, "The Transformer Market: Why Demand Is Outrunning Supply." https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/electric-power-and-natural-gas/our-insights/the-transformer-supercycle-why-demand-is-outrunning-supply
American Society of Civil Engineers, "Bridge Infrastructure in the US." https://infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/bridges-infrastructure/
Site Selection Magazine, "Kentucky's EV Ecosystem Begins to Take Shape." https://siteselection.com/kentuckys-ev-ecosystem-begins-to-take-shape/
InsideEVs, "Report: The Fourth Ultium Cells Battery Plant Might Be Built In Indiana." https://insideevs.com/news/605441/fourth-ultium-cells-battery-plant-indiana/