General Motors will be discontinuing its Ultium battery system brand name as it develops a new system for producing batteries, reports Inside EVs.
Ultium was introduced four years ago as being a battery that could accommodate all of GM’s future models, and was thought to make it easier for the automaker to produce enough batteries at scale to make EVs profitable.
However, this turned out to not be the case, leading GM Vice President of Battery Cell and Pack Kurt Kelty to announce this week that the company would be moving past Ultium.
“It now makes business sense to transition from one-size-fits-all to new program specific batteries,” said Kelty at the annual Investor Day presentation. “As we do so, we will sunset the brand name Ultium for our EV batteries and technologies.”
Until now, GM has produced EVs with nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum cells through a joint venture with LG Energy Solution. But the automaker is now in talks with TDK Corp to produce lithium-iron-phosphate batteries in the U.S.
GM will now turn to utilizing different battery chemistries and cell shapes to create batteries optimized for various vehicle models. This will include the addition of high-nickel, mid-nickel and lithium-iron-phosphate cathodes in future models.
Though lithium-iron-phosphate batteries are more cost-effective than nickel-manganese-cobalt cells, last longer, and have superior thermal performance, the downside is a decrease in energy density.
Battery research and development will commence at the Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center at GM’s Warren, Michigan, campus, as well as a Battery Cell Development Center that’s expected to be up and running by 2027.
