State officials in Michigan are hoping to convince General Motors to build one of its two future battery plants in the state.
Speaking to Automotive News, General Motors President Mark Reuss said the automaker’s home state is “of course,” in the running to receive one of its two new battery plants, although the automaker isn’t expected to make an announcement for another six months or so. Reuss also said Michigan would make sense to receive at least one of the two battery plants, as this would situate the plant near its new Factory Zero EV plant.
“If you look at where our plants are, our regular assembly plants for electric vehicles, there’s a big component of transportation of cells and packs to put into cars that are built in our assembly plants,” Reuss said, as quoted by Automotive News. “So we’d like to lessen that transportation cost. We’ll look at all states and all places that are interested in having it there, though; we will do that from a due diligence standpoint.”
State officials in Michigan are keen to secure a new investment from one of the Detroit Big Three after Ford announced new electric vehicle and battery plants for Kentucky and Tennessee – investments that total $11.4 billion.
GM is currently constructing two new Ultium battery plants in Lordstown, Ohio and Spring Hill, Tennessee and has plans to build two more in the United States in the near future. The Ohio plant is situated near multiple GM plants in the Midwest, while the Spring Hill plant is located near the GM Spring Hill Assembly plant that will build the Cadillac Lyriq crossover.
Battery packs for the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV are currently manufactured at two LG facilities in Holland and Hazel Park, Michigan. The Ultium plants in Ohio and Tennessee are operated by a joint venture between GM and LG called Ultium Cells LLC. The two future plants will also be operated by Ultium Cells LLC as GM and LG look to continue their battery manufacturing partnership far into the future.
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Comments
Batteries will hold great value in the future. While assembly plants will come and go the artery plants will be very busy.
Do extensive research on the functionality, practical maintenance, and the most effective batteries to get best results for the customer’s 500 to 600 miles per charge. Before going into mass production of a car just to meet a dollar deadline.
How about a plant based in the Pittsburgh,Pa region.
At first blush, the location of the first two announced locations seemed odd, given the first two vehicle assembly locations being at Michigan Factory 0 and Ingersoll, Ontario CAMI. However, Lansing Deleta Twp, Spring Hill, TN and San Luis PotosÃ, MX are the next 3, so it makes slightly more sense for those ones. I just cannot fathom truck loads of EV batteries being transported thousands of miles by truck, like an engine does. Does not seem 100% safe to have a trailer all packed out with lithium batteries. I have no worries about the packs in cars, just hauling semi loads of them on the highways I share.
I think Lansing Grand River is part of the next 3. Lansing Delta is scheduled to build ICE vehicles through at least the end of the decade.
I keep hearing Flint rumors, Maybe GM repurchases the Buick City site for an assembly and battery plant for EV pickups, but to me TX makes more sense for distribution to the lower half of the country.
I hope so for Flint. That city needs a break in the worst way.
My last 2 pickups both built in Flint, and both built well… I wonder though if Flint has the workers to support another assembly plant 1000-2000 and a battery plant with another 1000?
Another rumor I heard that would be unbelievable if true, and would make me question GM management is moving all HD pickup production to Oshawa, and rebuilding the Flint plant for EV pickups, which would not take much as the body and paint shops are brand new already, and the way they were built as separate buildings would allow just to tear down and rebuild the component and assembly wing. I see this as highly unlikely but did hear the rumor from a very reputable, and in the know source.
I agree that does seem far fetched. If anything gm needs more truck capacity and I don’t see gas/diesel trucks going anywhere fast. I do think if another ET1 plant were added it would build HD and larger trucks.
Oshawa is a gigantic facility, and could handle the volume if GM wanted to do that, but why take a well oiled machine that is making great trucks and huge profits and move it? If that happened I would really question GM management. There are a lot of other sites around Flint that could be bought and used.
Flint Assembly has about 5500 employees, and I am sure that it would not take that many employees to build electric trucks. That would create a lot of issues with the union., That being said, much of the old assembly line is still intact at Flint, and they used to have two lines in it. If GM is looking to build HD and Medium Duty trucks with a relatively low volume they could install the operation there.
Oshawa has about 1700 employees, so moving all HD production there would entail a lot of hiring.
Ya, we will have to wait and see… I am so curious, because to me TX makes the most sense from a logistics standpoint for a battery factory and truck plant, because they need batteries to supply the assembly plants in MX anyway.
Right now Oshawa has very few employees, just building some parts there, but that is a 10M+ sq ft factory, and is basically 2 assembly plants joined together as one, also has a brand new paint shop so who knows, sometimes GM makes no sense.
If it is in Flint, then it won’t situate the plant near its new Factory Zero EV plant?
With all the great schools, talent and brainpower in the USA why can’t the American automakers like GM (using South Korean LG ) and Tesla ( using Japanese Panasonic ), design and produce their own batteries?
Funny, as an example, I was on the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and most of the students were Asians.
America is becoming more of a Bizarro World each day.
I’m at SEMA this week. Haven’t seen a stand alone electric motor or battery here. Ford is promoting their Lightening F150.
GM going all in on electrics is spooky.
Dave look for a Yellow 57 Chevy. GM put a stand alone unit in it.
As for the intro of GM product go to the CES. That is where mos EV products are going.
Look at GM’s partnership with SES for their Ultium 2 technology.
HI Nero, Time will tell on this. I hope Ultimum 2 succeeds for the sake of GM’s coffers and their future.
Seriously, would you buy an EV if you lived North of the Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota highline? I think not.
Not too much chatter about EV’s at this year’s SEMA Show in Sin City. Displays and weather are beautiful.
Thanks C8.R
I saw the Yellow 57 Chevy yesterday. Didn’t peak under the hood. Will do today. There’s a bazillion 57 Chevys at SEMA’s.
Never been to a CES. The electronic stuff obsoletes itself after around 12 months. Like Apple intentionally does with their I phone products.
Different breed of Cat goes to CES versus SEMA. Geeks with smart phones calculating their daily lodging and meal costs in real time, and hackers seeing what they can exploit.
I bet Tesla will have their T squared designed EV pickup at CES. You will never see a Tesla pickup in the oilfield. At a Data Center of course.
EV’s lose 40% of their value in 6 months. Now that’s not a good thing.
Our Bolt EV is 3.5 years old. Subject to a battery recall and it still hasn’t lost 40% of it’s value.