Latest news with #LMR
Daily Telegraph
18-06-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Telegraph
GM invests in LMH manganese batteries
Don't miss out on the headlines from Motoring News. Followed categories will be added to My News. Electric cars could become cheaper and more efficient through new technology with Australian minerals at its core. General Motors is leading a charge toward new batteries made with a high proportion of manganese produced in Western Australia's Pilbara region. The tech, which is also being pursued by Ford, promises to reduce dependence on cobalt and nickel supplies increasingly controlled by Chinese firms. MORE: The pros and cons of going electric An employee holds a full-size prototype LMR battery cell at the General Motors Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center. Photo: Steve Fecht for General Motors The carmaker promises to make new Lithium Manganese-Rich (LMR) batteries that match the cost of existing Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries while delivering significantly more range. Which means that, mile for mile, the LMR batteries are cheaper than existing tech. Andy Oury, battery engineer and business planning manager for General Motors in Detroit, told Australian reporters 'this is a big deal'. MORE: China's EV move changes everything Chevrolet's Silverado EV is a rival to conventional V8 petrol models. 'That's going to help us get battery costs that are comparable to LFP with significantly higher energy density,' he said. 'There is hundreds of pounds of weight savings for the same amount of range when you go from LFP to LMR.' GM is working with LG in a joint venture called Ultium Cells to make the tech a reality. MORE: Why China is winning the EV race Ford is also investing in manganese batteries. The brand's chief executive, Jim Farley, recently told US media that difficulties securing lithium and other minerals made battery production a 'hand-to-mouth' proposition. Ford chief financial officer Sherry House told reporters that rare earth materials in China had to go through a difficult export control and administrative process before reaching Wester brands. MORE: 1000km EV batteries around the corner General Motors battery technician Steven Petty Jr. focuses on aligning electrodes on an anode sample for a prototype LMR battery cell in the making. Photo: Steve Fecht for General Motors Kushal Narayanaswamy, director of advanced battery cell engineering for GM, wrote in May that 'LMR is going to make it possible for GM to offer EVs with premium range at considerably lower cost. We can't wait.' Lower prices are just the beginning. While General Motors representatives are reluctant to talk up a tech war with China, EV experts are quick to point out the major upside of LMR batteries. Wired says successful implementation of the tech 'could be a game changer' that would 'circumvent China's stranglehold on intellectual property for EV batteries'. Inside EVs points out that 'China holds a commanding grip on the raw materials that power most electric vehicles sold in the U.S. and around the world', which is why Charged EVs says shifting to manganese-rich battery chemistry could 'provide a way to break China's dominance of the market'. GMC Hummer EV Pickup. Picture: Supplied Australia has an enormous role to play in the pivot to LMH batteries. GM has invested in ASX-listed mining firm Element 25, forging an agreement for the Western Australia-based company to supply enough manganese sulfate to put 1 million electric cars on the road. Madeleine King, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, announced on Tuesday that Element 25's Butcherbird manganese project in the Pilbara secured $50 million in support through the a loan by the government's Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility. Element 25's Butcherbird manganese project. Image: Element 25 Element 25 managing director Justin Brown said on X that it is a 'pivotal step in the delivery of what is going to be a game-changing project for the company', and a 'key step in our journey to become an end to end, vertically integrated refiner of manganese into high purity battery products for electric vehicle battery manufacturing.' Originally published as GM invests in LMH manganese batteries
The Advertiser
16-06-2025
- Automotive
- The Advertiser
Why GM is betting on a new type of EV battery
General Motors says its upcoming lithium manganese rich (LMR) batteries will offer an ideal balance of cost and range for certain electric vehicles (EVs). The American automaker plans to offer LMR batteries in addition to its existing types of lithium-ion batteries: lithium iron phosphate (LFP), intended for use in more affordable vehicles, and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), which it uses in more high-end vehicles. 'Rich' isn't an element on the periodic table, of course. Instead the name refers to a higher percentage of manganese being used but less in the way of nickel and cobalt. "We think that LMR really has an opportunity to be the low-cost chemistry in North America that's American pioneered and aligned with the infrastructure we already have in place," GM battery engineer Andrew Oury told media at the GM Technical Center in Michigan. "LMR has cost that's comparable to LFP but instead of having a range capped at around 350 miles [563km], we can get well over 400 miles [644km] of range with LMR." Hundreds of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now. The new LMR batteries will enter commercial production in 2028 at GM/LG Energy Solutions joint-venture plants. GM says that LMR batteries have been studied since the 1990s, but the chemistry has never been employed in EVs due to concerns over short battery life and voltage decay. But it claims LMR cells it has tested have energy density 33 per cent greater than the best-performing LFP cells on the market, while matching the lifespan of current-generation high-nickel cells. Additionally, it can produce LMR batteries using the same equipment used to produce NMC batteries. "That's a big benefit to localising low-cost chemistry. LFP wouldn't be able to use the same manufacturing lines – it needs different lines," said Mr Oury. But why is GM almost completely removing cobalt from the equation for these new EV batteries? One word: cost. "One of the easiest formulations of NMC is to take equal parts of nickel, manganese and cobalt, blend them together, and because you've got one part of each, we call that NMC 1-1-1," explained Mr Oury. "The problem with it is these materials don't have the same cost. Cobalt is clearly the most expensive of those materials, nickel is the next most expensive, and manganese is pretty affordable. "There's been a tailwind at the back of every battery engineer for the last 10 years, which was everybody just said, 'We're going to drop the cobalt as low as possible, and we're going to increase the nickel as high as possible as a cost-saving strategy'. "So you get rid of the most expensive one, you go to the next most expensive one. The reason you didn't go straight to the lowest cost one is because nickel is better at storing energy than manganese, so that helps get energy density up along the way. "Every time the industry made a shift towards higher nickel, folks said you won't be able to make a battery that lasts long, it'll overheat, it won't charge fast enough, the battery won't be stable, and it won't be abuse tolerant." Mr Oury explained many EV batteries have gone from 30 per cent nickel to as much as 80 per cent. With its NMR batteries, it plans to push that back down to 30 or 40 per cent, while pushing manganese up to 60 or 70 per cent. "That's going to help us get battery costs that are comparable to LFP with significantly higher energy density. This is a challenge, but we've addressed it with how we manufacture every element of the cell from the electrolyte to the energy-storing materials in the can," said Mr Oury. That doesn't mean GM will phase out LFP batteries, which it will offer in the Chevrolet Silverado EV and next-generation Bolt, or NMC batteries, as used in vehicles like its electric Cadillac lineup. "Going forward, we'll continue to use high-nickel chemistries where you need the longest range. In the rest of the market, we'll enable LFP near the entry level and LMR for mainstream or value vehicles," said Mr Oury. "We're building enough sales volume in different segments that we don't have to use the exact same engineering solution across all segments. "We can now have an engineering segment for this segment and a modified one for that segment. We'll still have large economies of scale but we can bring our piece cost and manufacturing cost down by being more application-specific." He cited the example of the base Work Truck (WT) version of the Chevrolet Silverado EV pickup, which offers a claimed range of 792km. With prismatic cells and LFP chemistry, it can offer 563km from a single charge – so "more range using low-cost LFP chemistry than some of our competition can get using the more expensive high-nickel chemistry", explained Mr Oury. Despite recent headwinds for EVs – chief among them a new administration in the US that has proven hostile towards the technology – GM is charging ahead. GM has two joint-venture battery plants with LG Energy Solutions and is building one with Samsung SDI, plus it has built a battery cell innovation centre at its Tech Center in Warren, Michigan that can produce full-size cells for prototyping. Under construction is a battery cell development centre which will be able to produce half a gWh worth of cells annually. "This plant will look like a faction of one of these plants, it'll have equipment that's largely the same, that can run at about the same speed and help us bridge that gap between prototype manufacturing and full-scale manufacturing," explained Mr Oury. GM is expanding from pouch cells to new prismatic cells (pictured above), which will be produced at both of its joint ventures. With these prismatic cells, GM can employ fewer but larger modules. In its electric pickup trucks, this means it can go from 24 modules to just six, with total battery module components reduced by 75 per cent and total pack components by 50 per cent. "We don't think anybody's building a lower-cost cell in North America than we are," said Mr Oury. GM currently offers a diverse lineup of EVs, ranging from the mid-size Chevrolet Equinox EV (pictured above) all the way up to full-size pickups and SUVs such as the GMC Hummer EV and Sierra EV. It's currently second in terms of EV sales in the US, behind only Tesla. It doubled its EV market share in 2024 as new models came on stream, and grew sales 94 per cent in the first quarter of this year – or almost two full points of market share. GM also builds a range of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac electric SUVs in China, and is launching Cadillac into new markets with an EV-only lineup. The Cadillac Lyriq, launched in Australia earlier this year, is GM's first EV in Australia. Content originally sourced from: General Motors says its upcoming lithium manganese rich (LMR) batteries will offer an ideal balance of cost and range for certain electric vehicles (EVs). The American automaker plans to offer LMR batteries in addition to its existing types of lithium-ion batteries: lithium iron phosphate (LFP), intended for use in more affordable vehicles, and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), which it uses in more high-end vehicles. 'Rich' isn't an element on the periodic table, of course. Instead the name refers to a higher percentage of manganese being used but less in the way of nickel and cobalt. "We think that LMR really has an opportunity to be the low-cost chemistry in North America that's American pioneered and aligned with the infrastructure we already have in place," GM battery engineer Andrew Oury told media at the GM Technical Center in Michigan. "LMR has cost that's comparable to LFP but instead of having a range capped at around 350 miles [563km], we can get well over 400 miles [644km] of range with LMR." Hundreds of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now. The new LMR batteries will enter commercial production in 2028 at GM/LG Energy Solutions joint-venture plants. GM says that LMR batteries have been studied since the 1990s, but the chemistry has never been employed in EVs due to concerns over short battery life and voltage decay. But it claims LMR cells it has tested have energy density 33 per cent greater than the best-performing LFP cells on the market, while matching the lifespan of current-generation high-nickel cells. Additionally, it can produce LMR batteries using the same equipment used to produce NMC batteries. "That's a big benefit to localising low-cost chemistry. LFP wouldn't be able to use the same manufacturing lines – it needs different lines," said Mr Oury. But why is GM almost completely removing cobalt from the equation for these new EV batteries? One word: cost. "One of the easiest formulations of NMC is to take equal parts of nickel, manganese and cobalt, blend them together, and because you've got one part of each, we call that NMC 1-1-1," explained Mr Oury. "The problem with it is these materials don't have the same cost. Cobalt is clearly the most expensive of those materials, nickel is the next most expensive, and manganese is pretty affordable. "There's been a tailwind at the back of every battery engineer for the last 10 years, which was everybody just said, 'We're going to drop the cobalt as low as possible, and we're going to increase the nickel as high as possible as a cost-saving strategy'. "So you get rid of the most expensive one, you go to the next most expensive one. The reason you didn't go straight to the lowest cost one is because nickel is better at storing energy than manganese, so that helps get energy density up along the way. "Every time the industry made a shift towards higher nickel, folks said you won't be able to make a battery that lasts long, it'll overheat, it won't charge fast enough, the battery won't be stable, and it won't be abuse tolerant." Mr Oury explained many EV batteries have gone from 30 per cent nickel to as much as 80 per cent. With its NMR batteries, it plans to push that back down to 30 or 40 per cent, while pushing manganese up to 60 or 70 per cent. "That's going to help us get battery costs that are comparable to LFP with significantly higher energy density. This is a challenge, but we've addressed it with how we manufacture every element of the cell from the electrolyte to the energy-storing materials in the can," said Mr Oury. That doesn't mean GM will phase out LFP batteries, which it will offer in the Chevrolet Silverado EV and next-generation Bolt, or NMC batteries, as used in vehicles like its electric Cadillac lineup. "Going forward, we'll continue to use high-nickel chemistries where you need the longest range. In the rest of the market, we'll enable LFP near the entry level and LMR for mainstream or value vehicles," said Mr Oury. "We're building enough sales volume in different segments that we don't have to use the exact same engineering solution across all segments. "We can now have an engineering segment for this segment and a modified one for that segment. We'll still have large economies of scale but we can bring our piece cost and manufacturing cost down by being more application-specific." He cited the example of the base Work Truck (WT) version of the Chevrolet Silverado EV pickup, which offers a claimed range of 792km. With prismatic cells and LFP chemistry, it can offer 563km from a single charge – so "more range using low-cost LFP chemistry than some of our competition can get using the more expensive high-nickel chemistry", explained Mr Oury. Despite recent headwinds for EVs – chief among them a new administration in the US that has proven hostile towards the technology – GM is charging ahead. GM has two joint-venture battery plants with LG Energy Solutions and is building one with Samsung SDI, plus it has built a battery cell innovation centre at its Tech Center in Warren, Michigan that can produce full-size cells for prototyping. Under construction is a battery cell development centre which will be able to produce half a gWh worth of cells annually. "This plant will look like a faction of one of these plants, it'll have equipment that's largely the same, that can run at about the same speed and help us bridge that gap between prototype manufacturing and full-scale manufacturing," explained Mr Oury. GM is expanding from pouch cells to new prismatic cells (pictured above), which will be produced at both of its joint ventures. With these prismatic cells, GM can employ fewer but larger modules. In its electric pickup trucks, this means it can go from 24 modules to just six, with total battery module components reduced by 75 per cent and total pack components by 50 per cent. "We don't think anybody's building a lower-cost cell in North America than we are," said Mr Oury. GM currently offers a diverse lineup of EVs, ranging from the mid-size Chevrolet Equinox EV (pictured above) all the way up to full-size pickups and SUVs such as the GMC Hummer EV and Sierra EV. It's currently second in terms of EV sales in the US, behind only Tesla. It doubled its EV market share in 2024 as new models came on stream, and grew sales 94 per cent in the first quarter of this year – or almost two full points of market share. GM also builds a range of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac electric SUVs in China, and is launching Cadillac into new markets with an EV-only lineup. The Cadillac Lyriq, launched in Australia earlier this year, is GM's first EV in Australia. Content originally sourced from: General Motors says its upcoming lithium manganese rich (LMR) batteries will offer an ideal balance of cost and range for certain electric vehicles (EVs). The American automaker plans to offer LMR batteries in addition to its existing types of lithium-ion batteries: lithium iron phosphate (LFP), intended for use in more affordable vehicles, and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), which it uses in more high-end vehicles. 'Rich' isn't an element on the periodic table, of course. Instead the name refers to a higher percentage of manganese being used but less in the way of nickel and cobalt. "We think that LMR really has an opportunity to be the low-cost chemistry in North America that's American pioneered and aligned with the infrastructure we already have in place," GM battery engineer Andrew Oury told media at the GM Technical Center in Michigan. "LMR has cost that's comparable to LFP but instead of having a range capped at around 350 miles [563km], we can get well over 400 miles [644km] of range with LMR." Hundreds of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now. The new LMR batteries will enter commercial production in 2028 at GM/LG Energy Solutions joint-venture plants. GM says that LMR batteries have been studied since the 1990s, but the chemistry has never been employed in EVs due to concerns over short battery life and voltage decay. But it claims LMR cells it has tested have energy density 33 per cent greater than the best-performing LFP cells on the market, while matching the lifespan of current-generation high-nickel cells. Additionally, it can produce LMR batteries using the same equipment used to produce NMC batteries. "That's a big benefit to localising low-cost chemistry. LFP wouldn't be able to use the same manufacturing lines – it needs different lines," said Mr Oury. But why is GM almost completely removing cobalt from the equation for these new EV batteries? One word: cost. "One of the easiest formulations of NMC is to take equal parts of nickel, manganese and cobalt, blend them together, and because you've got one part of each, we call that NMC 1-1-1," explained Mr Oury. "The problem with it is these materials don't have the same cost. Cobalt is clearly the most expensive of those materials, nickel is the next most expensive, and manganese is pretty affordable. "There's been a tailwind at the back of every battery engineer for the last 10 years, which was everybody just said, 'We're going to drop the cobalt as low as possible, and we're going to increase the nickel as high as possible as a cost-saving strategy'. "So you get rid of the most expensive one, you go to the next most expensive one. The reason you didn't go straight to the lowest cost one is because nickel is better at storing energy than manganese, so that helps get energy density up along the way. "Every time the industry made a shift towards higher nickel, folks said you won't be able to make a battery that lasts long, it'll overheat, it won't charge fast enough, the battery won't be stable, and it won't be abuse tolerant." Mr Oury explained many EV batteries have gone from 30 per cent nickel to as much as 80 per cent. With its NMR batteries, it plans to push that back down to 30 or 40 per cent, while pushing manganese up to 60 or 70 per cent. "That's going to help us get battery costs that are comparable to LFP with significantly higher energy density. This is a challenge, but we've addressed it with how we manufacture every element of the cell from the electrolyte to the energy-storing materials in the can," said Mr Oury. That doesn't mean GM will phase out LFP batteries, which it will offer in the Chevrolet Silverado EV and next-generation Bolt, or NMC batteries, as used in vehicles like its electric Cadillac lineup. "Going forward, we'll continue to use high-nickel chemistries where you need the longest range. In the rest of the market, we'll enable LFP near the entry level and LMR for mainstream or value vehicles," said Mr Oury. "We're building enough sales volume in different segments that we don't have to use the exact same engineering solution across all segments. "We can now have an engineering segment for this segment and a modified one for that segment. We'll still have large economies of scale but we can bring our piece cost and manufacturing cost down by being more application-specific." He cited the example of the base Work Truck (WT) version of the Chevrolet Silverado EV pickup, which offers a claimed range of 792km. With prismatic cells and LFP chemistry, it can offer 563km from a single charge – so "more range using low-cost LFP chemistry than some of our competition can get using the more expensive high-nickel chemistry", explained Mr Oury. Despite recent headwinds for EVs – chief among them a new administration in the US that has proven hostile towards the technology – GM is charging ahead. GM has two joint-venture battery plants with LG Energy Solutions and is building one with Samsung SDI, plus it has built a battery cell innovation centre at its Tech Center in Warren, Michigan that can produce full-size cells for prototyping. Under construction is a battery cell development centre which will be able to produce half a gWh worth of cells annually. "This plant will look like a faction of one of these plants, it'll have equipment that's largely the same, that can run at about the same speed and help us bridge that gap between prototype manufacturing and full-scale manufacturing," explained Mr Oury. GM is expanding from pouch cells to new prismatic cells (pictured above), which will be produced at both of its joint ventures. With these prismatic cells, GM can employ fewer but larger modules. In its electric pickup trucks, this means it can go from 24 modules to just six, with total battery module components reduced by 75 per cent and total pack components by 50 per cent. "We don't think anybody's building a lower-cost cell in North America than we are," said Mr Oury. GM currently offers a diverse lineup of EVs, ranging from the mid-size Chevrolet Equinox EV (pictured above) all the way up to full-size pickups and SUVs such as the GMC Hummer EV and Sierra EV. It's currently second in terms of EV sales in the US, behind only Tesla. It doubled its EV market share in 2024 as new models came on stream, and grew sales 94 per cent in the first quarter of this year – or almost two full points of market share. GM also builds a range of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac electric SUVs in China, and is launching Cadillac into new markets with an EV-only lineup. The Cadillac Lyriq, launched in Australia earlier this year, is GM's first EV in Australia. Content originally sourced from: General Motors says its upcoming lithium manganese rich (LMR) batteries will offer an ideal balance of cost and range for certain electric vehicles (EVs). The American automaker plans to offer LMR batteries in addition to its existing types of lithium-ion batteries: lithium iron phosphate (LFP), intended for use in more affordable vehicles, and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), which it uses in more high-end vehicles. 'Rich' isn't an element on the periodic table, of course. Instead the name refers to a higher percentage of manganese being used but less in the way of nickel and cobalt. "We think that LMR really has an opportunity to be the low-cost chemistry in North America that's American pioneered and aligned with the infrastructure we already have in place," GM battery engineer Andrew Oury told media at the GM Technical Center in Michigan. "LMR has cost that's comparable to LFP but instead of having a range capped at around 350 miles [563km], we can get well over 400 miles [644km] of range with LMR." Hundreds of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now. The new LMR batteries will enter commercial production in 2028 at GM/LG Energy Solutions joint-venture plants. GM says that LMR batteries have been studied since the 1990s, but the chemistry has never been employed in EVs due to concerns over short battery life and voltage decay. But it claims LMR cells it has tested have energy density 33 per cent greater than the best-performing LFP cells on the market, while matching the lifespan of current-generation high-nickel cells. Additionally, it can produce LMR batteries using the same equipment used to produce NMC batteries. "That's a big benefit to localising low-cost chemistry. LFP wouldn't be able to use the same manufacturing lines – it needs different lines," said Mr Oury. But why is GM almost completely removing cobalt from the equation for these new EV batteries? One word: cost. "One of the easiest formulations of NMC is to take equal parts of nickel, manganese and cobalt, blend them together, and because you've got one part of each, we call that NMC 1-1-1," explained Mr Oury. "The problem with it is these materials don't have the same cost. Cobalt is clearly the most expensive of those materials, nickel is the next most expensive, and manganese is pretty affordable. "There's been a tailwind at the back of every battery engineer for the last 10 years, which was everybody just said, 'We're going to drop the cobalt as low as possible, and we're going to increase the nickel as high as possible as a cost-saving strategy'. "So you get rid of the most expensive one, you go to the next most expensive one. The reason you didn't go straight to the lowest cost one is because nickel is better at storing energy than manganese, so that helps get energy density up along the way. "Every time the industry made a shift towards higher nickel, folks said you won't be able to make a battery that lasts long, it'll overheat, it won't charge fast enough, the battery won't be stable, and it won't be abuse tolerant." Mr Oury explained many EV batteries have gone from 30 per cent nickel to as much as 80 per cent. With its NMR batteries, it plans to push that back down to 30 or 40 per cent, while pushing manganese up to 60 or 70 per cent. "That's going to help us get battery costs that are comparable to LFP with significantly higher energy density. This is a challenge, but we've addressed it with how we manufacture every element of the cell from the electrolyte to the energy-storing materials in the can," said Mr Oury. That doesn't mean GM will phase out LFP batteries, which it will offer in the Chevrolet Silverado EV and next-generation Bolt, or NMC batteries, as used in vehicles like its electric Cadillac lineup. "Going forward, we'll continue to use high-nickel chemistries where you need the longest range. In the rest of the market, we'll enable LFP near the entry level and LMR for mainstream or value vehicles," said Mr Oury. "We're building enough sales volume in different segments that we don't have to use the exact same engineering solution across all segments. "We can now have an engineering segment for this segment and a modified one for that segment. We'll still have large economies of scale but we can bring our piece cost and manufacturing cost down by being more application-specific." He cited the example of the base Work Truck (WT) version of the Chevrolet Silverado EV pickup, which offers a claimed range of 792km. With prismatic cells and LFP chemistry, it can offer 563km from a single charge – so "more range using low-cost LFP chemistry than some of our competition can get using the more expensive high-nickel chemistry", explained Mr Oury. Despite recent headwinds for EVs – chief among them a new administration in the US that has proven hostile towards the technology – GM is charging ahead. GM has two joint-venture battery plants with LG Energy Solutions and is building one with Samsung SDI, plus it has built a battery cell innovation centre at its Tech Center in Warren, Michigan that can produce full-size cells for prototyping. Under construction is a battery cell development centre which will be able to produce half a gWh worth of cells annually. "This plant will look like a faction of one of these plants, it'll have equipment that's largely the same, that can run at about the same speed and help us bridge that gap between prototype manufacturing and full-scale manufacturing," explained Mr Oury. GM is expanding from pouch cells to new prismatic cells (pictured above), which will be produced at both of its joint ventures. With these prismatic cells, GM can employ fewer but larger modules. In its electric pickup trucks, this means it can go from 24 modules to just six, with total battery module components reduced by 75 per cent and total pack components by 50 per cent. "We don't think anybody's building a lower-cost cell in North America than we are," said Mr Oury. GM currently offers a diverse lineup of EVs, ranging from the mid-size Chevrolet Equinox EV (pictured above) all the way up to full-size pickups and SUVs such as the GMC Hummer EV and Sierra EV. It's currently second in terms of EV sales in the US, behind only Tesla. It doubled its EV market share in 2024 as new models came on stream, and grew sales 94 per cent in the first quarter of this year – or almost two full points of market share. GM also builds a range of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac electric SUVs in China, and is launching Cadillac into new markets with an EV-only lineup. The Cadillac Lyriq, launched in Australia earlier this year, is GM's first EV in Australia. Content originally sourced from:
7NEWS
16-06-2025
- Automotive
- 7NEWS
Why GM is betting on a new type of EV battery
General Motors says its upcoming lithium manganese rich (LMR) batteries will offer an ideal balance of cost and range for certain electric vehicles (EVs). The American automaker plans to offer LMR batteries in addition to its existing types of lithium-ion batteries: lithium iron phosphate (LFP), intended for use in more affordable vehicles, and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), which it uses in more high-end vehicles. 'Rich' isn't an element on the periodic table, of course. Instead the name refers to a higher percentage of manganese being used but less in the way of nickel and cobalt. 'We think that LMR really has an opportunity to be the low-cost chemistry in North America that's American pioneered and aligned with the infrastructure we already have in place,' GM battery engineer Andrew Oury told media at the GM Technical Center in Michigan. 'LMR has cost that's comparable to LFP but instead of having a range capped at around 350 miles [563km], we can get well over 400 miles [644km] of range with LMR.' Hundreds of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now. The new LMR batteries will enter commercial production in 2028 at GM/LG Energy Solutions joint-venture plants. GM says that LMR batteries have been studied since the 1990s, but the chemistry has never been employed in EVs due to concerns over short battery life and voltage decay. But it claims LMR cells it has tested have energy density 33 per cent greater than the best-performing LFP cells on the market, while matching the lifespan of current-generation high-nickel cells. Additionally, it can produce LMR batteries using the same equipment used to produce NMC batteries. 'That's a big benefit to localising low-cost chemistry. LFP wouldn't be able to use the same manufacturing lines – it needs different lines,' said Mr Oury. But why is GM almost completely removing cobalt from the equation for these new EV batteries? One word: cost. 'One of the easiest formulations of NMC is to take equal parts of nickel, manganese and cobalt, blend them together, and because you've got one part of each, we call that NMC 1-1-1,' explained Mr Oury. 'The problem with it is these materials don't have the same cost. Cobalt is clearly the most expensive of those materials, nickel is the next most expensive, and manganese is pretty affordable. 'There's been a tailwind at the back of every battery engineer for the last 10 years, which was everybody just said, 'We're going to drop the cobalt as low as possible, and we're going to increase the nickel as high as possible as a cost-saving strategy'. 'So you get rid of the most expensive one, you go to the next most expensive one. The reason you didn't go straight to the lowest cost one is because nickel is better at storing energy than manganese, so that helps get energy density up along the way. 'Every time the industry made a shift towards higher nickel, folks said you won't be able to make a battery that lasts long, it'll overheat, it won't charge fast enough, the battery won't be stable, and it won't be abuse tolerant.' Mr Oury explained many EV batteries have gone from 30 per cent nickel to as much as 80 per cent. With its NMR batteries, it plans to push that back down to 30 or 40 per cent, while pushing manganese up to 60 or 70 per cent. 'That's going to help us get battery costs that are comparable to LFP with significantly higher energy density. This is a challenge, but we've addressed it with how we manufacture every element of the cell from the electrolyte to the energy-storing materials in the can,' said Mr Oury. That doesn't mean GM will phase out LFP batteries, which it will offer in the Chevrolet Silverado EV and next-generation Bolt, or NMC batteries, as used in vehicles like its electric Cadillac lineup. 'Going forward, we'll continue to use high-nickel chemistries where you need the longest range. In the rest of the market, we'll enable LFP near the entry level and LMR for mainstream or value vehicles,' said Mr Oury. 'We're building enough sales volume in different segments that we don't have to use the exact same engineering solution across all segments. 'We can now have an engineering segment for this segment and a modified one for that segment. We'll still have large economies of scale but we can bring our piece cost and manufacturing cost down by being more application-specific.' He cited the example of the base Work Truck (WT) version of the Chevrolet Silverado EV pickup, which offers a claimed range of 792km. With prismatic cells and LFP chemistry, it can offer 563km from a single charge – so 'more range using low-cost LFP chemistry than some of our competition can get using the more expensive high-nickel chemistry', explained Mr Oury. Despite recent headwinds for EVs – chief among them a new administration in the US that has proven hostile towards the technology – GM is charging ahead. GM has two joint-venture battery plants with LG Energy Solutions and is building one with Samsung SDI, plus it has built a battery cell innovation centre at its Tech Center in Warren, Michigan that can produce full-size cells for prototyping. Under construction is a battery cell development centre which will be able to produce half a gWh worth of cells annually. 'This plant will look like a faction of one of these plants, it'll have equipment that's largely the same, that can run at about the same speed and help us bridge that gap between prototype manufacturing and full-scale manufacturing,' explained Mr Oury. GM is expanding from pouch cells to new prismatic cells (pictured above), which will be produced at both of its joint ventures. With these prismatic cells, GM can employ fewer but larger modules. In its electric pickup trucks, this means it can go from 24 modules to just six, with total battery module components reduced by 75 per cent and total pack components by 50 per cent. 'We don't think anybody's building a lower-cost cell in North America than we are,' said Mr Oury. GM currently offers a diverse lineup of EVs, ranging from the mid-size Chevrolet Equinox EV (pictured above) all the way up to full-size pickups and SUVs such as the GMC Hummer EV and Sierra EV. It's currently second in terms of EV sales in the US, behind only Tesla. It doubled its EV market share in 2024 as new models came on stream, and grew sales 94 per cent in the first quarter of this year – or almost two full points of market share. GM also builds a range of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac electric SUVs in China, and is launching Cadillac into new markets with an EV-only lineup. The Cadillac Lyriq, launched in Australia earlier this year, is GM's first EV in Australia.
Perth Now
16-06-2025
- Automotive
- Perth Now
Why GM is betting on a new type of EV battery
General Motors says its upcoming lithium manganese rich (LMR) batteries will offer an ideal balance of cost and range for certain electric vehicles (EVs). The American automaker plans to offer LMR batteries in addition to its existing types of lithium-ion batteries: lithium iron phosphate (LFP), intended for use in more affordable vehicles, and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC), which it uses in more high-end vehicles. 'Rich' isn't an element on the periodic table, of course. Instead the name refers to a higher percentage of manganese being used but less in the way of nickel and cobalt. 'We think that LMR really has an opportunity to be the low-cost chemistry in North America that's American pioneered and aligned with the infrastructure we already have in place,' GM battery engineer Andrew Oury told media at the GM Technical Center in Michigan. 'LMR has cost that's comparable to LFP but instead of having a range capped at around 350 miles [563km], we can get well over 400 miles [644km] of range with LMR.' Hundreds of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now. Supplied Credit: CarExpert The new LMR batteries will enter commercial production in 2028 at GM/LG Energy Solutions joint-venture plants. GM says that LMR batteries have been studied since the 1990s, but the chemistry has never been employed in EVs due to concerns over short battery life and voltage decay. But it claims LMR cells it has tested have energy density 33 per cent greater than the best-performing LFP cells on the market, while matching the lifespan of current-generation high-nickel cells. Additionally, it can produce LMR batteries using the same equipment used to produce NMC batteries. 'That's a big benefit to localising low-cost chemistry. LFP wouldn't be able to use the same manufacturing lines – it needs different lines,' said Mr Oury. Supplied Credit: CarExpert But why is GM almost completely removing cobalt from the equation for these new EV batteries? One word: cost. 'One of the easiest formulations of NMC is to take equal parts of nickel, manganese and cobalt, blend them together, and because you've got one part of each, we call that NMC 1-1-1,' explained Mr Oury. 'The problem with it is these materials don't have the same cost. Cobalt is clearly the most expensive of those materials, nickel is the next most expensive, and manganese is pretty affordable. 'There's been a tailwind at the back of every battery engineer for the last 10 years, which was everybody just said, 'We're going to drop the cobalt as low as possible, and we're going to increase the nickel as high as possible as a cost-saving strategy'. 'So you get rid of the most expensive one, you go to the next most expensive one. The reason you didn't go straight to the lowest cost one is because nickel is better at storing energy than manganese, so that helps get energy density up along the way. Supplied Credit: CarExpert 'Every time the industry made a shift towards higher nickel, folks said you won't be able to make a battery that lasts long, it'll overheat, it won't charge fast enough, the battery won't be stable, and it won't be abuse tolerant.' Mr Oury explained many EV batteries have gone from 30 per cent nickel to as much as 80 per cent. With its NMR batteries, it plans to push that back down to 30 or 40 per cent, while pushing manganese up to 60 or 70 per cent. 'That's going to help us get battery costs that are comparable to LFP with significantly higher energy density. This is a challenge, but we've addressed it with how we manufacture every element of the cell from the electrolyte to the energy-storing materials in the can,' said Mr Oury. That doesn't mean GM will phase out LFP batteries, which it will offer in the Chevrolet Silverado EV and next-generation Bolt, or NMC batteries, as used in vehicles like its electric Cadillac lineup. Supplied Credit: CarExpert 'Going forward, we'll continue to use high-nickel chemistries where you need the longest range. In the rest of the market, we'll enable LFP near the entry level and LMR for mainstream or value vehicles,' said Mr Oury. 'We're building enough sales volume in different segments that we don't have to use the exact same engineering solution across all segments. 'We can now have an engineering segment for this segment and a modified one for that segment. We'll still have large economies of scale but we can bring our piece cost and manufacturing cost down by being more application-specific.' He cited the example of the base Work Truck (WT) version of the Chevrolet Silverado EV pickup, which offers a claimed range of 792km. With prismatic cells and LFP chemistry, it can offer 563km from a single charge – so 'more range using low-cost LFP chemistry than some of our competition can get using the more expensive high-nickel chemistry', explained Mr Oury. Supplied Credit: CarExpert Despite recent headwinds for EVs – chief among them a new administration in the US that has proven hostile towards the technology – GM is charging ahead. GM has two joint-venture battery plants with LG Energy Solutions and is building one with Samsung SDI, plus it has built a battery cell innovation centre at its Tech Center in Warren, Michigan that can produce full-size cells for prototyping. Under construction is a battery cell development centre which will be able to produce half a gWh worth of cells annually. 'This plant will look like a faction of one of these plants, it'll have equipment that's largely the same, that can run at about the same speed and help us bridge that gap between prototype manufacturing and full-scale manufacturing,' explained Mr Oury. GM is expanding from pouch cells to new prismatic cells (pictured above), which will be produced at both of its joint ventures. Supplied Credit: CarExpert With these prismatic cells, GM can employ fewer but larger modules. In its electric pickup trucks, this means it can go from 24 modules to just six, with total battery module components reduced by 75 per cent and total pack components by 50 per cent. 'We don't think anybody's building a lower-cost cell in North America than we are,' said Mr Oury. GM currently offers a diverse lineup of EVs, ranging from the mid-size Chevrolet Equinox EV (pictured above) all the way up to full-size pickups and SUVs such as the GMC Hummer EV and Sierra EV. It's currently second in terms of EV sales in the US, behind only Tesla. It doubled its EV market share in 2024 as new models came on stream, and grew sales 94 per cent in the first quarter of this year – or almost two full points of market share. GM also builds a range of Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac electric SUVs in China, and is launching Cadillac into new markets with an EV-only lineup. The Cadillac Lyriq, launched in Australia earlier this year, is GM's first EV in Australia.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
LGES, Samsung to produce LFP batteries in the US with GM
South Korean electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturers LG Energy Solution (LGES) and Samsung SDI Company have agreed to install lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery production lines at their respective joint venture plants with General Motors (GM) the US, according to reports in South Korea citing people familiar with the matter. LGES' joint venture with GM, called Ultium Cells LCC, currently has two battery plants in the US, in Tennessee and Ohio, which were completed in 2024 and 2022, respectively, and produce high-nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries. GM has requested that some of the production lines be switched to cheaper LFP battery cells, to help lower its battery electric vehicle (BEV) production costs and allow it to offer a broader range of battery options in its BEVs in the North American market. GM hopes to lift its BEV sales in the region by offering both types of batteries in its vehicles, with the more expensive nickel-rich NCM batteries used mainly in its premium BEVs and LFP batteries used in its mass-market models, giving it access to a broader customer base. The US automaker is understood to be planning to offer LFP batteries in five of its seven existing BEV models, including the Chevrolet Bolt, Equinox, Blazer and Silverado EV. LGES and GM are also developing lithium-manganese-rich (LMR) batteries, which are expected to offer good performance characteristics while retaining the low-cost advantages of LFP batteries. Ultium Cells is expected to begin production of LMR batteries in 2028. Samsung SDI has also agreed to switch some production lines at its joint venture plant in Indiana. The facility, which is scheduled to become operational in 2027, was originally designated to produce only NCM batteries, but will now also produce the cheaper LFP battery cells. "LGES, Samsung to produce LFP batteries in the US with GM" was originally created and published by Just Auto, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
