GM just announced that it has appointed Kurt Kelty as the company’s new vice president of Batteries, a newly created position at General Motors. Kelty will report to GM President Mark Reuss, and will support The General in its transition to all-electric powertrains. Kelty is a former Tesla executive and considered a globally recognized battery expert.
Newly appointed GM VP of Batteries Kurt Kelty
As General Motors’ new vice president of batteries, Kelty will oversee the automaker’s battery cell strategy and end-to-end approach, including the use of raw materials, research and development, investments, commercialization, and end of life opportunities.
“The foundation that GM has established coupled with Kurt’s exceptional battery expertise in leading battery chemistry development, establishing partnerships, building out supply chains and partnering closely with teams that have developed leading battery systems will help us achieve our electrification goals and position GM as a leader in EV technology,” said GM President Reuss.
Kelty previously served as vice president at Sila, overseeing sales, business development, battery cell manufacturing partnerships, and battery engineering. Prior to working at Sila, Kelty led battery development at Tesla for 11 years. During his tenure at Tesla, Sila oversaw technical exchanges and commercial negotiations with battery cell suppliers and early-stage battery cell developers, and was key in the creation of the first Tesla Gigafactory. Kelty began is career in lithium-ion batteries in the early ‘90s working for Panasonic.
“For more than 30 years, I’ve been focused on helping develop and commercialize battery technologies that will aid in the transition to electric transportation,” Kelty said. “Joining GM creates an even bigger opportunity to help the industry make the switch and have a lasting impact on our planet.”
In related news, General Motors just inked a new $18.6 billion deal with LG Chem to secure hundreds of thousands of tons of cathode materials for battery production. The new deal secures 500,000 tons of cathode materials from 2026, and 950,000 tons of cathode materials by 2030.
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Comments
As the saying goes “If you can’t beat them, copy them.” First they buy Teslas gigacasting company and now they poach their VP of battery development. Can’t say its not a smart move if they are so serious about going EV.
It wasn’t Tesla’s gigacasting company.
Tooling & Equipment International was founded in 1983 and was a company that Tesla bought large casting equipment from.
Tesla was not the leader in large castings. Musk just has the biggest mouth.
Kurt knows what he must do if GM is going to ultimately be competitive with Tesla. The question is can he win the internal battles within GM’s various departments and their entrenched positions?
He must get GM to dump their association with LG Chem and their now older generation LiMnCoAl battery chemistry, which GM has branded as Ultium, and go with world’s largest battery supplier, CATL, which has developed a new generation of LiFePO4 (aka LiFe) and will be going into Teslas as quickly as Tesla can make it happen.
The newest LiFe batteries have considerably more energy density, charge faster and reportedly are half the cost of other chemistries.
The winners of the “EV wars” will be the companies which can produce quality cars at low prices. Tesla’s has a significant lead in lowering production costs and soon with lower cost batteries that are about 30% of the cost of the car. GM knows how to produce cars, but the winner will be the one that can do both.
Unless Kurt can win the internal battle with those within GM that have drunk LG Chem’s Kool-Aide, he, and by extension GM, will not be successful.
Having seen many “outsiders” hired into GM (now gm) at higher levels for their expertise, I give Mr. Kelty a 10-1 shot at doing what you just said. Maybe less.
The overwhelming pressure is just “go with the flow” even if it’s obviously not the best solution. That’s ESPECIALLY true if it costs money. Try and shake the status quo and the barriers become immense and your career prospects at GM become nonexistent.
Internally, it was even given the unofficial name “the GM nod”. At meetings, when discussing some future direction, usually the decision was already made by some boss and everyone else just sits there and nods their head in agreement…whether they really agree or not. Suggest alternatives or raise objections at your own risk.