GM Unveils Battery with Capacity Twice as Big as Tesla’s

At an "EV Day" in Detroit, General Motors gave details about its ambitious plans for an electric future, including details of several new EVs and the battery technology they'll use.

GM divulged sizes and prices of batteries that would make them some of the most competitive products available in both range and price.

The battery tech, under the brand name Ultium, will first go into the upcoming Hummer.

Although General Motors has been very open about its ambitious plan to electrify its lineup and sales, the manufacturer has been coy—until now—about how it'll get there. At an "EV Day" event today in Detroit, the Detroit-based automaker divulged details on the battery tech that will sit in products such as the forthcoming Hummer EV, among many, many others.

GM’s Ultium batteries will offer battery capacities that range from 50.0 kWh to a massive 200.0 kWh. Although 50.0 kWh is a capacity seen on many electric vehicles today, 200 would be the first of its kind. Rivian, maker of the forthcoming R1T EV pickup and R1S EV SUV, has said that it'll offer a battery with a capacity of up to 180 kWh. Tesla’s biggest battery is 100.0 kWh, available in the Model S and Model X, which is one of the biggest batteries currently available.

That 200.0-kWh battery will only go into GM’s electric trucks, the Hummer SUT, Hummer SUV, and an electrified Chevrolet pickup. The huge battery, we approximate, is roughly 18 inches thick. GM estimates its biggest battery will give vehicles a range of up to 400 miles or more on a full charge.

Battery Price Drop Should Be Game-Changing

General Motors claims that through its joint venture with LG Chem, announced late last year, will drive their battery costs down to below $100 per kWh. In 2019, battery prices averaged $156 per kWh, a BloombergNEF (BNEF) analysis found, which was down from $1100 per kWh in 2010.

BNEF has estimated that it won’t be until 2024 that the average battery price falls below $100/kWh. If GM does reach that price before then, it would make their EVs much more affordable relative to others on the market. Nonetheless, the automaker didn’t divulge a timeline for when its venture with LG Chem would produce the batteries at that cost.

Battery Will Use Way Less Cobalt

Contributing to that price reduction, though, would be that the Ultium battery will reduce the amount of cobalt use by 70 percent compared with other EV batteries. Cobalt is a rare and expensive metal and crucial in the production of lithium batteries. Possible shortages of this one mineral or disruptions in the supply chain, of which 59 percent is found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have the potential to disrupt EV production.

GM has also developed new charging technology. Most of their electric vehicles will have a standard operating voltage of 400 volts with a charging rate of 200 kW, but their trucks will be able to charge at 800 volts and 350 kW. The Taycan boasts similar numbers, allowing it to have quick charging times.

It will be later this year that we first see the Ultium batteries in GM's vehicles, which will make their way throughout GM’s brands starting with the various forms of the Hummer EV, the Cadillac Lyriq and Escalade, a Buick EV, and eventually into 20 models by 2023—or so GM says.