The joint venture between GM and LG Chem will create a battery cell assembly plant in the Lordstown ... [+]
General Motors CEO Mary Barra today announced a 50-50 joint venture with South Korea’s LG Chem valued at $2.3 billion to produce lithium-ion battery cells in Ohio. The plant will be located in Lordstown, near the recently shuttered Cruze assembly plant.
The new facility will supply batteries for several upcoming GM battery electric vehicles, including a pickup truck that goes into production in late 2021.
GM and LG have been working together since 2008 during development of the first generation Chevrolet Volt. Since then GM has used LG battery cells in almost all of the plug-in vehicles it has produced since the production launch of the Volt in late 2010.
"We're excited about what we're going to accomplish with this first facility," Barra told reporters in a briefing Thursday. "We are still on track to have about 20 electric vehicles globally by 2023. ... “We believe by working together we'll accelerate and get to industry-leading cost levels.”
The battery plant will have capacity to produce more than 30 gigawatt hours of battery cells a year, and is designed to be easily expanded if necessary, the company said. Assuming an average of 90 kWh per vehicle, that would support production of about 330,000 vehicles annually.
The new plant will not assemble the battery packs or modules. Modules and packs will be assembled at or near the vehicle assembly plants such as the Detroit Hamtramck Assembly Plant where the first electric pickup will be produced. Since the new plant will not be up to full production until 2023, initial supplies for the truck launching in 2021 will likely come from other LG Chem facilities. LG Chem currently supplies large format pouch cells used by GM and other automakers from Holland, Mich., South Korea and Poland.
Barra declined to what incentives may have been provided by Ohio and said that the White House had been made aware of the project.
Reports of a battery joint venture first surfaced in early September during UAW contract talks. GM had proposed using the existing Lordstown plant but that facility has since been sold to startup Lordstown Motors. The battery plant will employ up to 1,100 people, about a quarter of the number who’d worked at GM’s shuttered facility.
While the new factory will initially focus on supplying batteries for GM vehicles, Barra did not rule out eventually providing batteries to other OEMs as it makes sense for the joint venture to be a successful business. The new partnership will also include joint product development of cells and chemistry.
“General Motors is committed that our next-generation of the new battery electric vehicle architecture will be desirable, profitable, with the right range and affordable,” she said. “It's got to be affordable to drive the volumes and really drive EVs in the marketplace. Customers are really looking for affordability.”
