General Motors Co. and Samsung SDI this week finalized a battery joint venture agreement that the companies announced in 2023, with the companies’ plant in Indiana to open in 2027, a year later than originally planned.
GM and the South Korean battery supplier last year said they would build a multibillion-dollar battery cell manufacturing plant. The facility — expected to cost $3.5 billion, up from the $3 billion originally projected — will have an initial capacity of 27 gigawatt hours with the capability of expanding up to 36 gigawatt hours, Kurt Kelty, GM’s vice president of batteries, said in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday.
GM is planning to build nickel-rich prismatic and cylindrical cells at the Samsung JV plant. It makes pouch cells with LG Energy Solution, another South Korean battery supplier, at two operating battery cell plants in the United States.
The New Carlisle, Indiana, GM-Samsung plant is expected to create 1,600 jobs, 100 fewer than originally projected. The plant property is 20 minutes west of South Bend near the Michigan border.
“The Samsung SDI joint venture paves the way for our next-generation EVs to provide customers with the latest battery technology, improving EV performance, and the ownership experience,” Kelty said in the post. “Our new venture with SDI supplements our successful Ultium Cells JV with LG Energy Solution.”
GM and LG have an Ultium Cells LLC joint-venture plant in northeast Ohio and another in Spring Hill, Tennessee, next to the automaker’s Spring Hill Assembly plant, where both electric and internal combustion engine vehicles are made.
A third Ultium Cells plant in Lansing is expected to scale production in 2025 based upon customer demand.
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