GM And LG Energy Solution Mulling Indiana For Ultium Cells Plant

In a press release published Friday, GM confirmed plans to announce the location of its fourth U.S.-based Ultium Cells battery manufacturing plant in the near future. While GM has yet to say where this facility will be located, a report from Reuters indicates the plant will be constructed about an hour and a half east of Chicago in New Carlisle, Indiana.

A spokesperson for Ultium Cells LLC confirmed to Reuters that the company is “developing a competitive business case for a potential large investment that could be located in New Carlisle, Indiana,” and that it has applied to receive tax breaks for the investment. The plant will be roughly the same size as the previously announced Ultium Cells LLC plants in Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan and would represent an investment of around $2 billion.

The first Ultium Cells LLC plant, located in Warren, Ohio, will begin producing battery cells this month. The 2.8-million-square-foot facility was constructed at a cost of $2.3 billion, employs roughly 700 workers and will have an annual output of 30 GWh. The remaining two Ultium plants will be located in Spring Hill, Tennessee and Lansing, Michigan on sites situated close to existing GM vehicle assembly plants. The Tennessee site will come online in 2023, with the Michigan site set to go live in 2024.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) announced in July that it had entered a conditional agreement with Ultium Cells LLC for a $2.5 billion loan to help finance the construction of its new battery cell manufacturing facilities in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan. If confirmed, it’s likely the new site in Indiana would also benefit from this federal financial assistance. In a statement, the DOE said the loan “comes at a time when the EV market is expected to grow substantially in the coming years.”

The Ultium battery plants will manufacture large format, pouch-type nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum (NCMA) battery cells, which will later be packed into GM vehicle battery packs. The automaker’s Ultium battery pack design is modular, allowing the cells to be stacked in different arrangements to create batteries of varying sizes and energy densities. This allows the same cell design to be used across a wide variety of GM EVs, from pickups to crossovers, performance cars and more.

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