AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)12/03 Report--

On December 2, General Motors (GM.N) of the United States and South Korean battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution decided to invest an additional $275 million to build a plant. Ultium Cells LLC, a joint venture between the two sides, said that the new investment was on top of the $2.3 billion announced in April 2021, and that the additional investment of $275 million was mainly for a joint venture battery plant in Tennessee. The new investment is expected to increase the plant's capacity from 35 gigawatt hours to 50 gigawatt hours. "by expanding Ultium Cells Spring Hill's battery production, this investment will help GM provide customers with the broadest portfolio of electric vehicles and further consolidate GM's leading position in the US electric vehicle sector," said Tim Herrick, vice president of GM electric vehicles.

According to reports, UltiumCellsLLC has four battery plants in the United States, located in Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Indiana. Tennessee battery plant began to invest in April 2021, when GM and LG Energy announced a $2.3 billion investment in Tennessee to build an electric vehicle battery factory with a size of 2.8 million square feet (260000 square meters). The plant will start production by the end of 2023, and the Michigan plant is also under construction and is expected to start production by the end of 2024, when capacity will be increased from the original 5GWh to 75GWh. TimHerrick, GM's vice president of electric vehicles, said Ultium Cells LLC would promote GM's commitment to the "future of all-electric vehicles". For next year's US car sales forecast, GM CEO said it expected US car sales to reach 15 million next year.

According to the data, GM's global sales from January to October in 2022 were 4.385 million, down 8.9 per cent from a year earlier and a seven-year low, with the Chinese market falling 19.8 per cent to 1.727 million and its market share to 10 per cent from 11.2 per cent in the same period last year. Subdivided into GM's joint ventures in China, SAIC GM sold less than 1 million vehicles in October 2022, down 5.9 per cent from a year earlier, while SAIC GM Wuling sold 1.236 million vehicles, down 1.2 per cent from a year earlier. In the new energy sector, SAIC GM Wuling ranked second in sales of new energy manufacturers with 368700 vehicles in October, while SAIC GM fell out of the top 15, according to FIFA data.

Obviously, GM electric transformation is imminent, in addition to the layout of the American market, GM will also accelerate the layout of China's new energy market in the future. General Motors China showed the progress of its launch on the Ultium Ortenone global electric platform at the 2022 Technology Outlook Day in Shanghai on November 22nd. Officials said that since the launch of the Ortenone platform, it has been used in GMC pure electric Hummer super pickup and pure electric SUV, Cadillac CELESTIQ and LYRIQ Ruige, CruiseOrigin self-driving shared models, Chevrolet SilveradoEV, BrightDrop pure electric logistics vehicles and many other vehicles.

According to the plan, GM will launch more than 15 Autenon models in the Chinese market by the end of 2025, covering its major global brands; launching a new software platform in China in 2023; SAIC General Motors invested 70 billion yuan in the field of electrification and intelligent network technology in 2025; four domestic Autenon platform models will be launched in 2023, and more than 10 domestic Autenon pure electric models will be launched by the three major brands in the next five years.

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