GM to problem China’s LFP monopoly with upgraded battery manufacturing facility
GM mentioned Monday it’s working with three way partnership accomplice LG Vitality Answer to improve its Ultium battery manufacturing facility to make lithium-iron-phosphate cells for the automaker’s low-cost EVs.
The manufacturing facility’s overhaul will give LFP manufacturing in the USA a major enhance. Regardless of being invented and commercialized within the U.S., the overwhelming majority of LFP cells are at present made in China.
The $2.3 billion Spring Hill, Tennessee, battery plant is a part of the Ultium Cells LLC three way partnership between the automaker and Korean battery maker LG Vitality Answer, a division of LG Chem. The manufacturing facility started pumping out lithium-ion cells, which have a nickel-manganese-cobalt chemistry, in 2024, about three years after it was first introduced. The corporate mentioned it can start changing its battery cell strains at Spring Hill to provide LFP cells later this 12 months, with industrial manufacturing anticipated by late 2027.
The automotive business has been gravitating to LFP batteries in recent times for his or her low price and interesting security profile. The uncooked supplies that make up the chemistry are cheaper and extra extensively accessible than different chemistries like nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC), they usually’re additionally much less more likely to catch fireplace.
GM has been pursuing a three-pronged method to battery sourcing for its EV vary, which at present spans 12 fashions.
On the excessive finish, it can proceed utilizing NMC in fashions that require longer vary. The longest-legged Chevy Silverado EV, for instance, makes use of a large 205 kilowatt-hour NMC pack to drive 492 miles on a single cost.
Within the center, GM has developed a brand new chemistry it calls lithium-manganese-rich, or LMR. The brand new chemistry slashes the quantity of nickel and cobalt in a cell and replaces it with cheaper, domestically accessible manganese. The outcome, GM mentioned, might be a pack that delivers extra vary than LFP at a value that’s corresponding to LFP as we speak. LMR cells ought to hit the market in 2028.
For entry-level automobiles, GM is planning to modify to LFP, Andy Oury instructed TechCrunch in Might. Given how persistently battery pack prices have come down over time, it’s doubtless that LFP prices will drop beneath these for LMR within the coming years. The Spring Hill upgrades ought to begin producing LFP cells for industrial sale in 2027.