Earlier this year, GM and Korean chemicals company Posco Chemical announced plans to construct a new $500 million battery materials plant in Quebec, which will produce cathode active material (CAM) for GM’s Ultium lithium-ion batteries. Now the automaker has announced a second CAM agreement, this week entering a partnership with LG Chem that will see the Korean company provide up to 950,000 tons of CAM through to 2030.
The CAM material from this supply agreement will be enough for approximately 5 million units of EV production and will be used at the Ultium Cells LLC battery plants in Ohio, Tennessee, and Lansing, Michigan. Ultium Cells LLC is a joint venture company operate by both GM and LG Chem.
“This agreement builds on GM’s commitment to create a strong, sustainable battery raw material supply chain to support our fast-growing EV production needs,” Jeff Morrison, GM vice president, Global Purchasing and Supply Chain, said in a statement. “LG Chem has demonstrated technical expertise, high-quality and mass production capabilities of cathode active materials over the last decade. At the same time, this agreement demonstrates GM’s commitment to strong supplier relationships, and compliments our many other recent EV supply chain announcements.”
“Importantly, GM now has contractual commitments secured with strategic partners for all battery raw material to support our goal of 1 million units of EV capacity by the end of 2025,” Morrison added.
The CAM that LG Chem will supply to GM are rare earth materials such as nickel, cobalt, manganese and aluminum, which represent about 40 percent of the cost of a battery cell. LG says its CAM combines its “best material technology and is characterized by its excellent stability and output,” with aluminum being integrated into its CAM to “strengthen stability while decreasing the amount of cobalt used in GM’s previous generation of batteries by 70 percent.”
Some of the other strategic partners that will supply parts and materials for future GM EVs include MP Materials (rare earth magnets), VAC (magnet factory), General Electric (rare earth and other materials), Wolfspeed (silicon carbide), and Controlled Thermal Resources (lithium).
Between this latest LG Chem announcement, the prior Posco Chemical announcement and other similar supply contracts, GM says it has contractually secured enough battery raw material to produce one million EVs in North America by 2025.
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Comments
Very happy to see GM locking in all these Agreements.
Are long term contracts for lithium battery materials a good idea when solid state batteries are close to being developed?
Contracts are relatively short 5 years at peak production rates, so even if SS matures the materials change and associated lead times will be not far from optimal
@Joe Salach
I am by no means an expert in Battery Tech but from what I understand Solid State Batteries actually already exist but are waaaay too expensive and extremely hard to Mass Produce as of right now.
Once they do get cost down and huge scalability then yes Solid State will for sure take over but that can be a Decade away from some Pundits…..but who really knows at the end of the day.
Even if they offered zero interest on EV’s-I would still have zero interest.
Smokefoot55:
In my area people who have had in the past ZERO INTEREST when gas prices are low are suddenly very interested in how much it costs to refuel an EV…. I tell them my ‘at home’ price is slightly less than $1 a gallon equivalent.
So people who in the past would say they couldn’t care less – are actually beginning to care.
Bill:
We obviously look at cars differently. I like cars with character-I’ve owned 15 Corvettes over the years. Of course it’s all subjective, but I look at EV’s as merely transportation appliances. Additionally, consideration must be given to the cost of battery replacement.
Smokefoot55:
Of course if you have one of the new ‘Vettes with 7 radiators, you’re going to have plenty of maintenance expense…
I’m on my 7th EV, and even with the early ones I never – EVER – had any battery expense…. I never even changed the anti-freeze in any of the battery coolant loops. They simply don’t get hot enough to degrade. And the Advanced Glass Matte 12 volt battery under the trunk of my 2014 ELR, although being 8 1/2 years old – is still the original – and on my 6 other evs – i never had to change the 12 volt batteries either.
I’ll bet you will have at least SOMETHING from the 7 radiators – even if you do your own work, – you’ll be paying Dupont for the antifreeze.
So – no offense – at least with GM products you are not conversant with what their EVs require and what they do not.
Well maybe you’re one of the lucky ones. Check out the article on the family that bought a used Ford EV for 11k. They only had it for a short time when the battery needed replacement. Car only had 60k miles. Battery cost 14k. Oops-battery no longer available.
Smokefoot55:
Mark Twain agreed with you: “I’m all in favor of Progress… Its CHANGE I don’t LIKE !”.
Well I’m in favor of progress, but not regress. Doesn’t make sense to produce electricity from fossil fuels to charge and EV. Doesn’t make sense to litter the countryside with wind turbines or solar panels (made in China) that end up in landfills because it’s too costly to recycle the material. Doesn’t make sense to build EV batteries from material obtained from China either. I noticed that this article doesn’t indicate the source of the materials. Think you’re saving the planet? Volvo says that EV’s generate 70% more carbon emissions than ICE. That’s what I call regression.
Okay. But do they have a million buyers for EV’s? I’m not one of them. Even if they offered zero interest-I’d still have zero interest in buying one.
A Chevy Volt hit 500k miles on factory battery, only losing 1/37 th of its range. So a Long battery is possible. The newer EVs use more Amps and percentage of available charge(and charging rates) which shorten the life greatly.