General Motors has broken ground on the new lithium-ion battery plant it is building near Lordstown, Ohio in partnership with Korean company LG Chem.
According to local Lordstown publication Tribune Chronicle, GM began grading land at the site where the $2.3 billion battery plant will be built on Wednesday. The automaker was awaiting the correct permits to start work on the battery plant and was granted them this week.
The new plant sits on a 158-acre plot of land located just off of Tod Avenue in Lordstown. The automaker had previously owned the plot of land, but sold it in the wake of its 2009 bankruptcy proceedings. It bought the parcel of land back last year for $5.1 million.
Tribune Chronicle says GM is planning to have the battery plant up and running by January of 2022. The plant will mass-produce battery cells for GM’s future battery-electric vehicles, including the GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq. GM and LG Chem will both own the facility through a new, equally owned joint-venture company called GigaPower LLC. The plant is expected to employ around 1,100 people, with line workers represented by the UAW.
“With this investment, Ohio and its highly capable workforce will play a key role in our journey toward a world with zero emissions,” GM CEO Mary Barra said previously. “Combining our manufacturing expertise with LG Chem’s leading battery-cell technology will help accelerate our pursuit of an all-electric future. We look forward to collaborating with LG Chem on future cell technologies that will continue to improve the value we deliver to our customers.”
GM will produce its new Ultium battery packs at the plant, which will range in size from 50 kWh to 200 kWh. The 200 kWh battery pack will enable certain future GM EVs to travel up to 400 miles on a single charge, the automaker claims. The Ultium batteries will also be used in future Honda electric vehicles, with GM and Honda set to jointly develop the future Honda EVs.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more GM UAW news, GM electric vehicle news, Lordstown Assembly news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Source: Tribune Chronicle
Comments
I wonder if GM has considered building a Chevy Bolt EV battery pack with the new chemistry. This may allow existing Bolts to be uprated by swapping the original pack for this new one. The new pack could offer more range and a longer operational life.
GM screwed the taxpayers again on this one for more subsidies. They closed the lordstown plant scattering it ‘team members’ and their families across the country.
GM Family First. What a joke.
This left thousands out of a job as new products like the Mexican blazer were move out of the USA.
NOW they admit that a new plant will be built almost on top of the old plant.
All in an effort to introduce more low paying jobs.
Since this is how Mary Barry is doing business, she won’t even do business with me.
Wake up this is how all companies do business.. Cities and states are all competitive for new plants. Even Amazon has threatened to leave their headquarters unless tax breaks are given.
To be honest GM easily could have gone elsewhere and gotten a better deal. Also they could have gone south like the 4n automakers to avoid the unions.
The Lordstown deal was a give back that worked for all parties. The real issue now is will they sell enough EV products to keep it alive?
I live here and the reason the Youngstown area died was the labor unions. GM had a good relation ship with the UAW here. But they had no real product for this plant at that time. Also the plant is old and very inefficient hence why the sold it to build a new plant.
There is a lot more going on here than some want to admit or know.
GM made a big mistake thinking the Cruze was going to keep selling. Few saw the drop off coming as fast as it did.
The competition does not pay their workers like GM, sorry, but that’s the way it goes if a company wants to stay in business. You either accept lower pay or have no jobs. Which is better?
The plant is expected to employ around 1,100 people, with line workers represented by the UAW – this is currently a problem and will be one in the future. GM has a cost disadvantage that other OEM’s do not have due to the UAW. There is no “law” that GM must work with the UAW, they’ve chosen to do so here it seems. While I don’t profess to know why, it seems like a lost oppty to keep costs competitive. There are probably more auto workers in the USA today that are not UAW than currently are, so again, oppty lost…?
Please advise where to put in job application.