General Motors determined to lead EV charge

DETROIT—With dozens of electric vehicles under development, electric motor and battery manufacturing in-house and the partnerships needed for sprawling charging networks in place, General Motors Co. isn't just experimenting with EVs anymore. Its EV business is all-encompassing.

GM intends to leap ahead of competitors that were quicker to get serious about electrification by flooding the market with profitable, long-range models. The auto maker is pledging $20 billion toward electric and autonomous vehicle programs through 2025, and said its battery costs soon will fall below $100 per kilowatt-hour, the threshold widely seen as making EVs competitive with internal-combustion vehicles.

As a result, GM says its coming EVs will be profitable, something virtually no auto maker has been able to achieve. The company projects its EV sales in North America and China combined will reach 1 million a year by the middle of the decade, and executives say they still can meet demand even if it significantly exceeds their forecasts. GM says its EV business could even match the scope of its lucrative full-size pickup and SUV lines.

"This isn't 10 years away. It's not five years away. It's next year and the year after and the year after," GM President Mark Reuss said. "I don't think anybody has a gun that's loaded like this."

The 11 EVs that GM showed to reporters and analysts the week of March 1—no photos were permitted or released— are "just the tip" of what's to come, CEO Mary Barra said.

Auto makers typically are tight-lipped about future product, but executives decided it was time to illustrate the breadth of the company's EV strategy to gain credibility.

GM argues that, compared with Tesla and other rivals viewed as having an advantage today, lower battery costs and a wider variety of electric options will put it in the lead. GM has been building electric motors for many years, going back to the EV1 in 1996, and can leverage that expertise to control and scale production as needed, executives said.

"What we're talking about is going across all of our brands, all of the different segments to give people choice," Barra said. "And we think we can grow very, very quickly."

Less complexity

EV systems are much less complex than internal-combustion powertrain combinations. The auto maker plans 19 battery and drive-unit configurations to start, compared with 550 internal-combustion powertrain options today.

GM is designing its electric motors and developing its battery chemistry in-house. Its proprietary Ultium batteries, which it plans to make through a $2.3 billion joint venture with LG Chem, will allow for a driving range of up to 400 miles on a full charge. That's about 50 percent more than the 259-mile range for the 2020 Chevrolet Bolt.

"By having a stake in the entire process, we can optimize everything from the chemistry and the manufacturing of the cells, up to how we put it into modules, packs and vehicles," said Andy Oury, lead architect and strategy manager for GM's high-voltage battery packs. "We will beat the $100-per-kilowatt-hour cost target. We are nowhere near the bottom of the battery cost curve."

The GM-LG Chem plant being built in Lordstown, Ohio, will be among the largest of its kind in the world, with an annual capacity of more than 30 gigawatt-hours. But to support 1 million EVs, GM says it would need 250 million cells a year, which is likely several times more than the plant could make.

"That's hundreds of thousands of cells per day, tens of thousands of cells per hour," Oury said.

The Ultium batteries have 60 percent more power than the batteries in the current Bolt, GM said. The Ultium battery system was designed in conjunction with GM's EVs for maximum parts-sharing to reduce costs and allow for design flexibility, engineers said.

Lower-cost batteries

GM wants to lower battery costs even more by building them with less expensive and more widely available materials. Ultium batteries are made of a traditional nickel-cobalt-manganese combination, but GM also added aluminum. That allowed it to reduce the amount of costly cobalt by 70 percent.

"We are scouring the entire value chain and the globe looking at mines, refiners, precursor manufacturers to directly secure supply, to understand where partnerships and investments can yield dividends and to look for areas of untapped value," Oury said.

The auto maker wants to source as much raw material as possible from North America, and it's experimenting with additives to extend battery life.

"We have vehicles in our Maven fleet that are already trending to more than half a million miles" of lifetime range, Oury said. "A million-mile battery life for shared mobility usage models is within striking distance."

The GMC Hummer electric pickup, slated for production in fall 2021, will be the first vehicle with new battery technology, GM said. The auto maker also gave previews of other EVs to follow: a Hummer SUV, a midsize Chevy SUV, a Buick SUV and crossover and three Cadillacs—including a six-figure, hand-built sedan called the Celestiq.

GM said it plans to have 20 EVs globally by 2023, and it's converting the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant into an EV manufacturing hub with a $3 billion investment.

Faster charging

The new batteries will reduce charging time at 50-kilowatt fast-chargers to about 10 minutes for 100 miles, versus 30 minutes today.

GM aims to change the perception around EV charging. Rather than compare it to filling a gas tank, consumers should liken it to charging their smartphones, it said, noting that about 80 percent of Bolt and Volt charging happens at home or work.

Still, the auto maker has partnered with three major charging companies to increase the number of public charging stations and has enhanced its EnergyAssist mobile app to include a battery-range estimate upon arrival and charging station suggestions along the way. GM is working with its partners to build thousands more fast-charging stations in urban and suburban areas.

"This is the biggest opportunity any of us have ever seen for this company," Reuss said. "It will change this company and people's perception of it forever."