During GM’s recent Investor Day event, Vice President of Battery and Pack Kurt Kelty discussed the company’s strategic approach to electric vehicle battery development, announcing the automaker’s plans to open a new battery cell development center in Warren, Michigan. Long story short, GM will work on its own battery cell development in-house as it explores various battery form factors and battery chemistries. The new battery developments will be leveraged in the automaker’s existing EV architectures.
During the presentation, Kelty emphasized that GM is well-positioned to lead in EV battery performance and cost by building on favorable conditions in North America. As Kelty points out, existing battery technologies, such as nickel-cadmium and lithium-ion batteries, were originally invented in North America, but successfully commercialized in Asia due to a variety of different factors, such as low labor costs and heavy government support. Nevertheless, Kelty argued that the U.S. now has the right combination of market demand, public policies, suppliers, and talent to foster new battery innovation and production.
During his speech, Kelty highlighted GM’s capability to develop its own battery cells, which will allow the company to integrate new technologies quickly and efficiently.
“This enables us to chart our own course to future battery technology, allowing us to make and test sample cells more economically, iterate and ultimately bring new technology to the market faster,” Kelty said. “Doing this allows us to further bring down cost and increase performance, and while we can do our own independent research and development, we can also use our labs to support the R&D that our best cell partners are doing for us. This makes us the best OEM to partner with.”
A highlight of the presentation was the announcement of a new battery cell development center in Michigan, set to produce its first cells by early 2027.
“The battery cell development center will enable us to prove out new GM concepts, which can then be shared with our manufacturing partners to accelerate their ability to provide production cells to us,” Kelty said. “The output from the battery cell development center will allow us to refine processes before mass production starts, and will enable us to make enough cells for early vehicle prototype testing and validation.”
As GM Authority covered previously, General Motors is poised to drop the Ultium brand name currently in use with its EV batteries and drive motors. The decision to drop the brand may be in part the result of a finalized agreement with South Korean electronics firm Samsung SDI to build a new battery production plant in Indiana. GM presently has several battery production facilities under the Ultium Cells joint venture with South Korean battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution.
Comments
The stupidity continues! Mary is a kamikaze pilot.
Purchase required materials from China. Nobody wants EV that’s why the government has to use my tax dollars to buy them.
Thanks Ed.
and you use our tax dollars to base a large military presence in the MEast to protect oil flow and tax writeoffs for big oil to frack each well and and and…but your ok with that. Hmm.
Amazingly, people criticizing EV development don’t realize that China is becoming a technological tour-de-force. At the same time, you want your country to stay behind in technology and innovation. Wow!
To all of you who have no understanding, the more energy sources available for consumers to buy, the cheaper it will become to purchase gas or to own electric vehicles,