American automaker General Motors and South Korean Samsung SDI announced a strategic partnership on April 25, as they aim to co-develop a new battery cell plant worth over $3 billion in the United States.
“GM’s supply chain strategy for EVs is focused on scalability, resiliency, sustainability, and cost-competitiveness. Our new relationship with Samsung SDI will help us achieve all these objectives.
The cells we will build together will help us scale our EV capacity in North America well beyond 1 million units annually.”
Mary Barra, GM Chair and CEO
Purpose
As mentioned, the partnership aims to build a new US production plant for battery cells, which GM’s Ultium Platform-based EVs will use.
GM and Samsung SDI will co-develop nickel-rich prismatic and cylindrical cells at the planned facility.
Notably, the Ultium Platform was meticulously developed to support various cell chemistries and form factors. For instance, the Cadillac LYRIQ in China uses prismatic cells added to identical battery packs as those in the US.
This move may be part of the companies’ strategy to qualify for the new federal tax credits of up to $7,500 under the Inflation Reduction Act.
The proposed investment amounts to over $3 billion, with a goal of starting operations by 2026.
The press release also disclosed that the new US plant would have an initial capacity of over 30 GWh, with a maximum capacity reaching around 160 GWh once fully operational.
“It is a great pleasure to take the very first step to create a long-term industry-leading partnership with GM in the US EV market.
We will do our best to provide the products featuring the highest levels of safety and quality produced with our unrivalled technologies to help GM strengthen its leadership in the EV market.”
Yoon-ho Choi, Samsung SDI President and CEO
Benefits
Apart from aiding GM in reaching its annual production rate target of 1 million EVs, the joint venture will also improve GM’s competence in the rapidly growing auto market.
“We will continue to scale production and optimize the chemistry of our pouch cells for performance, range and cost using new approaches pioneered at GM’s Wallace Battery Center and by our technology partners.
The introduction of new cell form factors will allow us to expand into even more segments more quickly and integrate cells directly into battery packs to reduce weight, complexity and costs. With multiple strong cell partners, we can scale our EV business faster than we could going it alone.”
Doug Parks, GM Executive VP, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain
See Also:
- General Motors leads $50 million funding round in EnergyX for lithium supply in the US
- General Motors launches its Dealer Community Charging Program
- General Motors installs the first of 40,000 new electric vehicle chargers
- General Motors targets $50 billion in EV revenue
- General Motors boosts electric and intelligent connected vehicle rollout in China
At this moment, neither the location of the plant nor the expected job numbers have been disclosed by GM or Samsung SDI. Nonetheless, thousands of new employment in operations and construction are anticipated.
