Last year, GM Authority reported that General Motors was unable to finalize a fourth GM Ultium Cells plant in Indiana with LG Energy Solution after the latter couldn’t commit to the deal. However, The Hoosier State remained an attractive location for an EV battery facility, and now, The General and Samsung SDI have finalized their agreement to build such a factory in Indiana.
According to a report from Reuters, the two companies will invest roughly $3.5 billion to build a battery cell manufacturing plant in Indiana, with initial annual production capacity estimates of 27 gigawatt-hours. Later on, the South Korean-based battery maker aims for mass production by 2027 and an annual capacity of 36 GWh under the current expansion plans.
It’s worth noting that it’s unclear at this time if the Indiana battery plant will be branded as Ultium, as is the case of GM’s three other North American EV battery facilities in Warren, Ohio, in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and in Lansing, Michigan. Of course, those three other plants are jointly operated with LG Energy Solution.
GM Battery Cell & Pack Vice President Kurt Kelty noted that the plant will have the “capability to expand up to 36 GWh, building prismatic cells, which will be added to our battery technology portfolio, helping us to continue to increase performance and lower costs in the future.”
As a reminder, the new facility will be built on a 680-acre site within the Indiana Enterprise Center. The project site will span approximately three million square-feet of building space, with construction anticipated to be mostly complete by December 2027. Once completed, the plant is expected to create roughly 1,700 new jobs, and will likely become the largest single investment that area has seen in the last 75 years.
With this addition, General Motors expects to have a battery production capacity of 160 gigawatt-hours across all four of its North American EV battery plants.
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Comments
What are they going to do with all these batteries. This will be old tech by the time it’s built and no one wants Evs. I’ll bite on a hybrid
I’d take EV or ICE. The problem with hybrid is the over engineering needed for a small gain.
Its not a small gain lol. Toyota’s hybrids consistently score the top spots in reliability metrics.
I agree, no hybrids for me. The last thing I want are two systems to maintain in the same vehicle.
I have both a BEV and a PHEV.
Not really much maintenance on either.
Sure the PHEV we need to change the oil 1/yr. But that’s been it other than the usual stuff like wipers, washer fluid, and 12v batteries.
The brakes on the PHEV are still like new. 50,000 miles on the ODO.
But we do a large percentage of miles with the PHEV on batteries only, so the ICE isn’t getting a lot of use or aging.
EV sales are still growing, while ICE sales are decreasing.
Just look at the quarterly reports here on GMA.
But GM is planning on reintroducing PHEVs, which will need batteries too.
And even if the US market doesn’t grow fast enough to be able to consume those batteries, Europe and China will.
And GM has talked about re-entering Europe as an EV brand.
It takes years to get a battery plant up and running, so this plant won’t have cells coming down the line until late 2027 at the earliest.
Samsung SDI is also working on solid state batteries which are slated to be released….you guessed it, in 2027. It might be that the prismatic cells are meant to be affordable cells and the solid state the premium cells.
I live in Indiana so I’m happy about the jobs and positive impact on the economy, but I hope GM can sell enough EV’s to justify all 4 battery plants.