Source: Getty Images/Andrii Yalanskyi
Ultium Cells’s capacity expansion will support GM’s plans to produce more than one million EVs annually in North America
The US Department of Energy (DoE), through its Loan Programs Office (LPO), has loaned USD2.5 billion to Ultium Cells LLC to finance the company in constructing new lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing facilities in Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan, DoE said on 12 December 2022.
Ultium Cells, a joint venture between US carmaker General Motors and South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution, plans to expand electric vehicle (EV) battery production capacity to address the growth in demand amid global shift to EVs. According to the official note, the project is expected to create more than 11,000 new jobs, including about 6,000 in construction and 5,100 in operations across the three facilities. The newly created jobs will also include more than 700 United Auto Worker vacancies in the newly organized Warren, Ohio facility.
“DOE is flooring the accelerator to build the EV supply chain here at home—and that starts with domestic battery manufacturing led by American workers and the unions that support them,” said US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “This loan will jumpstart the domestic battery cell production needed to reduce our reliance on other countries to meet increased demand and support President Biden’s goals of widespread EV adoption and cutting carbon pollution produced by gas-powered vehicles.”
"Public-private partnerships are a way of linking private sector technologies and innovations with government resources, which ultimately leads to economic growth. My steadfast advocacy for the Mahoning Valley to become the nation’s hub of electric vehicle production has yielded a major investment in our workforce by the Department of Energy and represents another big step toward realizing a significant milestone,” said, US Representative Tim Ryan.
Significance: Earlier in October 2022, US President Joe Biden had launched the American Battery Materials Initiative alongside USD2.8 billion in grants from DoE to build out the battery mineral and material supply chain. The latest loan to Ultium Cells will directly support the US President’s goals to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and ensure that EVs contribute half of all new vehicle sales by 2030. Interestingly, announcement marks LPO’s first closed loan exclusively for a battery cell manufacturing project under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) program.
Furthermore, in July 2022, the LPO had announced a conditional commitment for the loan to Ultium Cells, which was to manufacture large format, pouch-type cells that use a state-of-the-art chemistry to deliver increased driving range at lesser cost. The said battery cells should be capable of being arranged in different combinations to provide clean, reliable energy for all EVs on the road, including pickups, sport utility vehicles (SUVs), and other vehicle families.
Ultium Cells’s capacity expansion will support GM’s plans to produce more than 1 million EVs annually in North America and make its global products and operations carbon neutral by 2040.
The official note further mentions that financing from the ATVM program complements the historic investments of the US Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—USD7.5 billion for EV charging infrastructure and more than USD7 billion for the critical minerals supply chains necessary for batteries, components, materials, and recycling.
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