General Motors will equip the next-generation Chevy Bolt EV with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, which will be purchased from a supplier. GM’s current Ultium battery cells utilize a nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum (NCMA) chemistry. The new LFP batteries will help GM save billions of dollars in capital and engineering expenses.
The move to purchase new LFP batteries for use in the next-generation Chevy Bolt EV and Chevy Bolt EUV was announced during GM’s Q3 2023 earnings presentation, during which GM CEO Mary Barra outlined future plans for the upcoming all-electric models:
“Another key launch for us is the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt EV. I know there’s been some speculation in the market as to why we are developing a new Bolt EV. Our strategy is to build on the tremendous equity we have in the brand, and to do it as efficiently as possible,” Barra said. “Our prior portfolio plans included several newly designed vehicles in the entry-level segment and a capital commitment of $5 billion over the next several years.”
Barra went on to state that the upcoming Chevy Bolt models will utilize GM’s latest Ultium technology, its latest software, and the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, a charge type originally developed by Tesla. GM announced it would adopt NACS last June, with plans to integrate it into new GM EVs starting in 2025.
“In the process, we are saving billions in capital and engineering expense, delivering a significantly cost-improved battery pack using purchased LFP cells, we’re getting to market at least two years faster, and our unit costs will be substantially lower,” Barra added. “This will be our first employment in North America of LFP technology in the Ultium platform.”
It’s unclear at the moment where GM will source the new LFP batteries. GM currently produces NCMA-based batteries at the Ultium Cells plant in Ohio, operated under a joint venture with LG Energy Solution. GM will soon launch production at additional battery facilities in Tennessee and Michigan.
GM confirmed the development of a next-generation Chevy Bolt EV over the summer. However, the new all-electric Bolt will not be a clean sheet redesign.
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Comments
Maybe with LFP batteries, they can actually build it in any sort of volume. So far, every Ultium rollout has been a complete disaster of typical GM proportions as far as I’m concerned.
The volume issue for Ultium Batteries has been resolved. Should be seeing a whole lot more coming out.
There was an issue with a Supplier not delivering on promised equipment for Module Production.
@meh
If the Battery issue has been resolved, then why is GM delaying their EV’s?
Something just doesn’t add up!!!
You can’t sell what the public doesn’t want.
I live in an area of the U.S. that has been safe from climate disasters, SO FAR! But as Americans we should ALL do our best to combat the extreme weather that people have been experiencing in many parts of the country. The one thing that we All could do is either purchase hybrids, plug in hybrids, or even EVs. Having owned two Bolt EVs and a Bolt EUV at one time (the first Bolt had the fire problem), I would say that until you really have experienced what a pleasure, and fun, they are to drive, you shouldn’t poo-poo them. Just think that when gas powered cars appeared on the scene, many people were very skeptical of them and weren’t willing to accept them, AT FIRST, that is until they tried them. So give EVs a try, and I’m sure that you will see that they are much better than you think. Not only that, but you may even become an advocate of them!
Didn’t GM just report yesterday that they doubled the Ultium production QoQ? and that the cost of cells dropped by 40 % YoY?
I guess LFP can be used a stopgap while they continue making progress on their Ultium production which probably won’t be fully ready until 2025 or so. Or does GM plan on importing CATL’s cheap LFP forever?
You’re confused. LFP is a chemistry and Ultium is a platform. They’re not exclusive. Barra said : “This will be our first employment in North America of LFP technology in the Ultium platform.”
@Buick City
Completely agree with you. GM is still clueless on how to scale Battery production and therefore BEV Production.
I said it years ago and it is now becoming very clear, pouch style batteries are a terrible idea and GM needs to move to Cylindrical batteries ASAP so they can mass produce them.
The rollout of the Electra in China seems to have gone fine, with over 10k units shipped in the first quarter of availability.
The battery supply issue does seem to be a legitimate bottleneck; first with cells, then with modules.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bolt ends up sourcing from LGE’s independent factories in Michigan and Arizona, leaving the output of the Ultium Cells joint ventures for the rest of their line-up.
@Matthew William Berg
That is exactly my point. Does GM build the vehicles in China or is it their Joint ventures that do?
GM needs to hire people that know how to build batteries at scale and BEV’s.
If Tesla can bring people in from china to their Fremont and Austin Plants to work on them then why can’t GM?
They need to do whatever is needed to get things moving at a mass scale because all of their reservation holders will and are moving onto other Brands.
What a total missed opportunity to overtake the likes of Toyota in NA and to never look back again and they Sh*t the bed very badly. Huge early lead and they embarrassed themselves Big Time.
That is unacceptable and someone needs to be held accountable.
G.M. bringing in Chinese communists to build batteries in the U.S. Bad idea!!
The Electra E5 uses CATL NMC batteries, not the LG Chem garbage GM has used for years in the US – think Bolt fires, poor charging dynamics, and inability to automate Ultium pack production. All domestic Chinese automakers, including Chinese state-owned SAIC, GM’s partner, pay much less for CATL batteries vs all foreign based OEMs in China. It is believed that domestic Chinese automakers pay 25% less for CATL batteries vs Western and Japanese OEMs. Therefore, this E5 is very competitively priced. CATL is by far the largest battery maker in the world with over 37% of the market with BYD a distant #2 at 16% – BYD started out as a battery maker long before it became an automaker.
@mvb
correct.
GM needs to move to Cylindrical batteries as soon as possible.
Pouch batteries are just Garbage for vehicles when compared to Cylindrical ones.
I am very hopeful that GM won’t keep trying to force the issue and come to the realization that they need to move on from pouch batteries just as they did with caving in and signing on to utilize the NACS Charging system instead of the dreaded CCS
@mvb: CATL’s NCM batteries aren’t necessarily better than LG’s — they are also notorious for being combustible with numerous recalls so far. They are essentially developed and produced by the same LG engineers CATL poached away years ago. CATL was only founded in 2011 and NCM isn’t exactly CATL’s strength. Personally I would sleep better with safer NCM8/9+ from SK On whose NCM batteries are also developed by engineers poached away from … drum roll please … LG. LG sued SK and won a few years ago. CATL can’t really sell their high-nickel NCMs oversea without stepping on LG’s NCM patents, which is one of the main reasons why China has been aggressively promoting inferior LFP instead.
CATL’s key advantage is mass manufacturing — they started building out their battery infrastructure much earlier, backed by China’s aggressive state industrial policy, and now they are able to mass-produce them at scale. It usually takes 30-36 months from ground breaking to a full production line; though I’ve heard much worse leadtime: eg, LG’s 70/115 (active/planned by 2025) GWh Poland plant took over 4+ years. The Ultium plant in OH’s ground breaking was in May 2020, so it seems they are just little behind.
The Bolt (with LG Chem batteries) that has cumulative sales since 2016 that are 30k less than the Tesla Model 3 has sold this year alone by Q3, yet there were way more Bolt fires than Tesla Model 3’s with CATL sourced batteries in the US. I don’t know the % of 3’s with CATL batteries, but it’s pretty safe to assume its at least 30% – meaning well over 300k. I had a Volt that had the LG Chem battery that went out – cost more to replace it than the car was worth. Sorry, but I avoid LG batteries – let’s not forget the Hyundai Kona which actually had more battery fires than the Bolt and guess the battery source . . . LG Chem. With a little digging you will see that in the US alone, LG Chem sourced batteries had more fires per 100,000 vehicles than other battery maker by 3x, just sayin’. I’m no CATL fanboy, but they have a massive lead over every other battery maker and are the first to deliver sodium Ion batteries for BEVs in China (Chery Auto) and their M3P is a category leader with energy density approaching NMC for 30% less money.
Sure, that’s why I don’t recommend LG batteries and I’d never buy GM or Tesla. As said earlier, LG’s safety-minded engineers defected to SK On years ago to start their own NCM development — SK’s cutting edge ultra-nickel NCM9 are already used in Ford’s F-150, Hyundai/Kia’s Ioniq 5N, EV9 for instance. But this wasn’t free — SK got sued and lost the $1.8B lawsuit. CATL also poached away a lot of LG engineers to develop and ramp up their NCM production, but they still make mediocre NCMs and they are stuck at NCM8 with no next gen NCM in sight. Again, their key strength is mass-manufacturing backed by pricing power which comes from their vertically integrated raw material supply-chain.
>> I’m no CATL fanboy, <<
Nah, I'm pretty sure you are not one of CATL fanbois parading around hyping up largely unproven, pre-production batteries, such as M3P or sodium, under pilot as next best things.
So are you claiming that M3P's energy density matches that of de facto industry standard NCM8, or cutting edge NCM9 with ~300 Wh/kg, or, perhaps, 10 year old NCM5/6? Don't get me wrong, I want the sodium ion to work, so it could free up precious lithium for high energy batteries.
Nobody is talking about how long these batteries will last ?
My Volt battery after 11 yrs is still getting the rated miles…. Designed for 6000 cycles.
Nobody is talking about battery specs!
LFP for the Bolt style vehicles makes sense. But it better make at least 250 Miles on a charge (Bare Minimum) and DC Fast Charging better be at BARE MINIMUM 100kW speed.
LFP’s make sense for NON Performance style vehicles as you can charge them up to 100% and they are cheap to produce while having zero Cobalt.
I have zero issue with GM buying LFP Batteries…..even Tesla purchases LFP Batteries.
If I were a betting man I would say that the upcoming Tesla 25K vehicle will come strictly with LFP Batteries and maybe in Asian market a split of LFP and the BYD Blade Batteries.
Sure, LFP makes sense for low-cost, low-range EVs, but you can NOT charge lithium ion batteries, including LFPs, to 100% SOC without degrading them. All lithium ion batteries degrade much faster when charged to 100%. Tesla M3 LFP RW EVs for instance lose 10% range, or degrade to 90% battery health, only after 50K miles, instead of 100K for non-LFP batteries (on average).
In LFP EVs, it is necessary to recalibrate the battery management system (BMS) to avoid misreading range/SOC (and other associated problems such as cell imbalance), which in turn degrade battery.
PS. just googled it and it seems like GM has an opening for a Senior Controls Design Engineer – Battery State Estimation – SDV.
LFPs are just cheap, inferior batteries suitable for low-cost, low-range EVs. Lets stop pretending that LFP last forever, never catch fire, or can be charged to 100% SOC without any damage in EVs. According to Cleanerwatt Oct 28, 2022:
Tesla LFP Battery 10% RANGE LOSS PROBLEM? | Model 3 RWD (Cleanwatt citing Tessie’s tracking data)
The brand new LFP batteries will degrade substantially quicker. There’s not long-term retention data for LFP batteries on the market yet, but the trend tends to be substantially faster degradation. Trends show them stabilizing around that 10% degradation mark in about half the time as non-LFP batteries – around 50,000 miles instead of 100,000 miles.”
“you can NOT charge lithium ion batteries, including LFPs, to 100% SOC without degrading them. ”
Being able to charge LFP to a 100% SOC is one of its major selling points, so your statement needs a rethink. Further, LFMP (+manganese) increases its charge density.
lol Ultium is the ultimate “sounded good on paper” but execution and dollars spent is a disaster
I think it’s the public interest waning.
So how much was spent on Ultium? And it can’t support the Bolt?
It’s alarming to me that GM isn’t making batteries for the new Bolt. What the hell have they been spending so much $$$ on?!?
I bet they are adjusting their ultium battery lines to produce the LFP batts too. And I bet they wound up in other models at the lower end of each.
LG Chem also makes LFP cells and batteries, so GM just needs a new business contract with them.
LG’s LFP plant in Arizona is for energy storage systems (ESS), not for EVs.