On Friday, leading U.S. automaker General Motors, which made every sixth automobile on the road in the United States in 2020, announced that Ultium Cells LLC, its electric vehicle (EV) battery joint venture with LG Energy Solution, will invest more than $2.3 billion to build a second U.S. EV battery manufacturing plant, to be located in Tennessee.
Ultium Cells will build the new plant on land leased from GM. The new battery cell plant will create 1,300 new jobs. Construction on the approximately 2.8 million-square-foot facility will begin immediately, with the plant scheduled to be online in late 2023. Once operational, the facility will supply battery cells to GM’s Spring Hill (Tennessee) assembly plant.
In October 2020, GM announced that it would invest $2 billion in its Spring Hill assembly plant, which will be the company’s third car manufacturing site to product electric vehicles, alongside its $2 billion Factory ZERO plant in Detroit and Hamtramck, Michigan, and its Orion Assembly plant in Orion Township, Micigran.
“The addition of our second all-new Ultium battery cell plant in the U.S. with our joint venture partner LG Energy Solution is another major step in our transition to an all-electric future,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra. “The support of the state of Tennessee was an important factor in making this investment in Spring Hill possible and this type of support will be critical moving forward as we continue to take steps to transition our manufacturing footprint to support EV production.”
“This partnership with General Motors will transform Tennessee into another key location for electric vehicle and battery production. It will allow us to build solid and stable U.S-based supply chains that enable everything from research, product development and production to the procurement of raw components,” LG Energy Solution President and CEO Jonghyun Kim said. “Importantly, I truly believe this coming together transcends a partnership as it marks a defining moment that will reduce emissions and help to accelerate the adoption of EVs.”
The state-of-the-art Spring Hill plant will use the most advanced and efficient battery cell manufacturing processes. The plant will be extremely flexible and able to adapt to ongoing advances in technology and materials.
GM’s proprietary Ultium battery technology is at the heart of the company’s strategy to compete for nearly every EV customer in the marketplace, whether they are looking for affordable transportation, luxury vehicles, work trucks, commercial trucks or high-performance machines.
Ultium batteries are unique in the industry because the large-format, pouch-style cells can be stacked vertically or horizontally inside the battery pack. This allows engineers to optimize battery energy storage and layout for each vehicle design. Energy options range from 50 to 200 kilowatt hours, which could enable a GM-estimated range up to 450 miles or more on a full charge with 0-60 mph acceleration in 3 seconds.
With a 30-year history in the battery business, LG Energy Solution has made consistent, large-scale investments over time, toward inventing its own cutting-edge technologies. The company established its first research facility in the U.S. in the early 2000s. In 2010, the company built its first U.S battery plant in Holland, Michigan.
Through Ultium Cells, LG Energy Solution and GM intend to merge their advanced technologies and capabilities to help accelerate automotive electrification.
The Tennessee plant investment is the latest in a series of EV-related technology announcements that General Motors has made in recent months. As of November 2020, GM has committed more than $27 billion to electric and autonomous (EV and AV) product development, including $7 billion planned for 2021 alone. The company plans to launch 30 EVs globally by the end of 2025, with more than two-thirds available in America. GM says that its Cadillac, GMC, Chevrolet and Buick lines will all be represented, with EVs at all price points.
Earlier this year, GM announced a new business line, BrightDrop, which it calls an “ecosystem of electric first-to-last-mile products, software and services” to serve the global last-mile delivery and logistics segment, a market that is expected to top $850 billion in value by 2025. BrightDrop’s first product to market, the EP1, is a propulsion-assisted electric pallet designed to move goods over short distances.
GM’s Ultium Cells LLC joint venture with LG Energy Solution was launched in 2019, beginning with the opening of a battery cell mass-production facility in Lordstown, Ohio.
