GM, LG to upgrade Tennessee plant to make low-cost EV batteries

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/14/gm-lg-ultium-spring-hill-tennessee-plant-ev-batteries.html

53•rntn•4h ago

Comments

alephnerd•3h ago

The batteries from this plant are also being used by Honda, as Honda and GM are working on sharing their BMS and platform

jillesvangurp•3h ago

It will be interesting to see when sodium ion production ramps up in the US and EU. China is far ahead with this. As it was with LFP for the last few years. CATL is actually ramping up production for their second generation sodium ion battery already. They've been producing the first generation for a few years already. Sodium ion is going to be double digit percentages of the battery market in a few years. Like LFP is today. In China at least.

The advantage is not only cost but also longevity. LFP and sodium ion batteries might have decades of useful life. With thousands of charge cycles, you could be charging them on a daily basis and it would be fine. NMC only has about 1000-1500 cycles. Some LFP batteries do 3-4x better than that. Sodium ion even better.

dralley•3h ago

Sodium ion is more useful (relatively speaking) for grid backing than cars. Weight and power density aren't so much of an issue in that application, longevity and price definitely is. So they can probably pivot if the administration starts trying to mess with the electric car market.

alephnerd•3h ago

> when sodium ion production ramps up in the US and EU

The Ultium announcement isn't Li-S related but but number of battery plant announcements over the past 5 years in the US (as well as Japan) have been plants that can support both LFP and Li-S battery manufacturing.

Japanese, Korean, and American automotive and battery vendors have been aligned on this from a capital and IP perspective for a LONG time.

rapsey•2h ago

Sodium is not very good chemistry. High degradation for instance.

happosai•2h ago

Citation needed.

CATL is promising 10k cycles for their latest sodium ion cells.

thebruce87m•2h ago

> The advantage is not only cost but also longevity. LFP and sodium ion batteries might have decades of useful life.

> NMC only has about 1000-1500 cycles.

200 miles per cycle and you’re at 200,000 miles, which is decades for a lot of people.

WorldPeas•1h ago

It is sad that gm essentially sold their entire "skateboard" platform they abandoned to SAIC, who now functionally own Cadillac/Buick. For all those who claim this was some kind of deception, it wasn't. Years of myopia, from the Motorola corvette to the EV-1 to the abandoned skateboard to the squandered volt and neglected bolt, GM is like Polaroid. They stopped being a "car" company and became an "engine" company, like how Polaroid stopped being a "camera" company and was a "chemical" company. This could shape up to be like JVC and its former parent, RCA, would the US gov bail them out again?

https://www.jalopnik.com/chevy-and-motorola-teamed-up-on-a-c...

https://carnewschina.com/2022/03/06/the-big-read-saic-6-6-th...

https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3308575...

kjkjadksj•1h ago

The modern corvette absolves a lot of sins imo. It was a big decision making it mid engined.

lucideng•1h ago

I want to agree with you that the "corvette absolves a lot of sins". But GM is still operating like they are "too big to fail", I hope we don't bail them out again. They make some amazing products and have a long history of advancing manufacturing and technology in their sector. Even with their engineering prowess, almost in spite of it, they continue to make some of the most mediocre vehicles that have ever existed. I swear the only people that buy their cars are former employees and relatives of said employees.

MisterTea•50m ago

> I swear the only people that buy their cars are former employees and relatives of said employees.

Coworker loves loves loves the corvette even though its one of the worst vehicles electrics wise. Two people he convinced to buy vettes traded them back in within a year of purchase for electrical issues.

Brand loyalty is a big part of the American mindset and I think GM rested on those laurels to the point where even after the bailout they still have the same mindset.

tw04•35m ago

>Two people he convinced to buy vettes traded them back in within a year of purchase for electrical issues.

Why on earth would you take a bath on a trade-in instead of using the lemon law if there were unfixable electrical issues?

Also - this sounds pretty anecdotal to be honest, long-time corvette owner who follows the forums and I've not seen any widespread complaints of electrical issues with the c8 besides a battery drain issue caused by OTA updates that was resolved.

https://www.tsbsearch.com/Chevrolet/N242435630

WorldMaker•5m ago

Mid-engined is most useful as a transition step to a modern skateboard design EV. Gets the center of gravity low and closer to the actual center point of the car, which a skateboard design then improves.

Corvette can't admit to aspirations of a Pure EV this decade (thanks, politics), but in my opinion, that's the only way to absolve a lot of the GM executive sins on being wishy washy about EV futures.

happycube•23m ago

They (probably) also had a chance to buy out A123 instead of letting it go to a Chinese company in bankruptcy, then they would have had control over LFP in general (word is CATL used a lot of ex-A123 industrial secres)

Give and Take: An End-to-End Investigation of Giveaway Scam Conversion Rates

Ani's Character Profile in Grok

Ask HN: Why isn't Hollywood making WWIII films given the perilous era we're in?

Guessing the Player's Sunrise

The gains from trade are not the gains from trade

Plastic surgeon off the hook for alleged Covid fraud, injecting kids with saline

Claude Code token usage and costs from local JSONL files

Iceberg Is Wrong

The Battle for Britain's First Book of the Month Club

Show HN: Context Rot Technical Report – How Input Length Impacts LLM Performance

AI is killing the web. Can anything save it?

Improving AVIF in Open Source

ZX Spectrum – Introduction To Programming (1983) [video]

Commodore 64 Ultimate: Basic Beige

ETT: Expanding the Long Context Understanding Capability of LLMs at Test-Time

C++ Library

Giant map details nerves across a mouse's body: see stunning pics

Being Boring app: relax and meditate for a short while on Apple devices

Ice cream producers to phase out artificial food dyes

As AI advances, the best interfaces will be the ones we don't see

AI's Goldilocks Problem: Powell, Huang, and Amodei Can't Agree

Sell Yourself Well – What Soham Parekh Can Teach Us

Undiscovered galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, supercomputer simulations hint

Collatz's Tape

My Cybersecurity Research on Red Lion G3 Web Server Vulnerabilities

C-: A Portable Assembly Language (1997)

I Answer 18 Questions

Show HN

LittleHorse Kernel: A Platform for Distributed Event-Driven Applications

Show HN: I Made a Product Image and Ad Cloner