The other piece of GM’s EV puzzle is its battery plants. GM and its Ultium Cells joint venture partner, LG Energy Solution, are spending $2.6 billion to build a battery plant in Lansing, Mich., their third in the U.S. Ultium Cells has battery plants under construction in Warren, Ohio, and Spring Hill, Tenn., and officials have said a fourth is needed, at a minimum.
“We’re going to put the new cell plants in the proximity to supply that footprint on a transportation basis,” GM President Mark Reuss told reporters last week. “These batteries and battery packs are relatively heavy. We want to cut that transportation cost as much as we can, make it efficient and be agile with the supply and demand of those cells and packs to our assembly plants.”
The Michigan investments are part of the $35 billion GM has committed to electric and autonomous vehicle development through 2025, when it aims to have more than 1 million units of EV capacity. By 2030, GM aims to convert half of its North American assembly capacity to EV production.
As GM plots its EV map, proximity between assembly and battery plants will be crucial.
The Ultium plant in Ohio will supply Factory Zero and CAMI in Ingersoll, Ontario, a source familiar with the plans told Automotive News. The Tennessee plant will support Spring Hill Assembly, and Lansing will supply Orion and future EV plants that haven’t been announced, GM said.
That leaves Ramos Arizpe in Mexico, the plant expected to build the electric Chevy Equinox and Blazer in 2023 and a Honda crossover in 2024, according to AutoForecast Solutions.
The next battery cell plant “may very well need to be in Texas or Arizona or New Mexico, somewhere close enough that they could take [a battery cell] across the border and put it into electric vehicles built there,” said Sam Fiorani, the firm’s vice president of global vehicle forecasting.
