Recently, Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, announced that General Motors will become a top electric vehicle brand by 2025. Additionally, General Motors plans to set the price of their major electric vehicle products at 30,000-35,000 U.S. dollars, entering the mid-to-low-priced electric vehicle market.
General Motor’s Layout
Battery Supply Layout
General Motors also announced that they have signed a multi-year agreement with Livent, a chemical and lithium technology company under LG.
The agreement includes LG Chem providing General Motors with 968,000 tons of cathode materials starting from the second half of this year. Additionally, for six years starting in 2025, General Motors will also obtain a large amount of battery-grade lithium hydroxide from Livent.
According to General Motor’s plan, along with their own reserves of lithium, nickel, cobalt, and positive electrode active materials, General Motors will be able to produce approximately one million electric vehicles in North America by 2025. And by 2030, they will have a total capacity of producing approximately five million electric vehicles.
Charging Network Layout
Mary Barra also pointed out that General Motors is collaborating with EVgo, Pilot, and Flying J to deploy their own charging station network and compete with Tesla’s Supercharger stations.
“We are committed to achieving the future of a pure electric, zero-emissions industry, and charging and energy supply facilities will be an important part of it. Pilot has multiple service centers in North America, making it an ideal partner for General Motors, which will help many General Motors owners have a fast and comfortable charging experience.”
Currently, Pilot’s charging facilities in the United States are equipped with 350 kW charging piles. In most of the interstate highways in the United States, there are 150 kW single charging stations every 50 miles, many of which are funded by Volkswagen’s Rapidgate, and many more are Electrify America’s charging stations.
It is foreseeable that there will be more charging stations in the coming years to provide a good charging experience for General Motors electric vehicles.
Comments
Starting with the release of the Ultium platform, it is obvious that General Motors has accelerated its electrification transformation process. Whether it is signing large battery supplier orders or collaborating with large-volume charging companies in North America, it can be seen that General Motors is determined to develop electric vehicles rapidly.However, although General Motors has dominated the gasoline car field and become the hegemon in North America, it seems somewhat unrealistic to dethrone Tesla, which is currently flourishing in the electric car field, in just 2.5 years.
Although both General Motors and Tesla had early attempts in electrification, compared to General Motors’ “shallow attempt”, Tesla chose to pursue the road to pure electric vehicles unwaveringly, leading to the brilliance they have achieved today. It is likely to take some time for General Motors to catch up with Tesla in the electric car field.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.