General Motors (GM) and South Korean advanced EV battery materials company Posco Future M revealed an additional investment in its new cathode factory in Ontario, Canada, now exceeding $1 billion.
GM plans to enhance CAM supply in North America
The new funding will help increase Cathode active material (CAM) production and the precursor materials (pCAM) needed to produce it in North America.
GM announced plans for the new factory last March, with the initial investment expected to be around $400 million (C$500 million). The facility is designed to manufacture cathode active materials for GM’s Ultium batteries, the backbone of its EV strategy.
CAM is the key raw material consisting of lithium and a secondary metal (or metals) that drive a significant portion of the output and around 40% of the costs of EV batteries. The two primary EV battery cathodes today are nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) and lithium iron phosphate (LFP).
Doug Parks, GM’s executive VP of global product development, purchasing, and supply chain, commented on the new investment, saying:
Increasing CAM production capacity and adding pCAM to our joint venture is another significant step in building a more secure and sustainable North America-focused supply chain to support GM’s fast-growing EV production needs.
With plans for battery cell production to reach at least 135 GWh, or enough to power 1.3 million EVs annually between its three Ultium Cell plants, GM is building out its entire battery supply chain, including raw material recovery.
Source: GM
Vertically integrating the EV battery supply chain
GM revealed its joint venture with LG Energy Solutions in 2019 to produce battery cells for electric vehicles based on its Ultium platform.
Ultium Cells began production in the US at its first plant in Warren, Ohio, last August, with plans for its second in Spring Hill, Tennessee, to start operations next year. A third, in Lansing, Michigan, is expected to open in early 2025, with a total capacity between the three planning to reach at least 135 GWh.
CAM will play a critical role in ensuring GM has the raw materials to ramp production and hits its goal of building 1 million EVs by 2025. POSCO Future M president Kim Joon-Hyung says, “We are experiencing rapid growth of EV battery materials across North America,” adding:
I believe our joint venture will fortify its position in the secondary battery material industry with this proactive decision to increase CAM production and bring pCAM production to North America. POSCO Future M’s advanced technology and experience is supported by our expanding partnership with GM. We are aiming to play a key role in the eco-friendly mobility market with our products.
The Ultium CAM joint venture will help support the production of around 360,000 Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, Buick, and BrightDrop EVs between 2025 and 2030 in North America.
GM has several highly anticipated Ultium EV launches this year, including the following:
Silverado EV: Deliveries to begin later in the second quarter, with production ramping in 2H 2023
Blazer EV: Launching this summer
Equinox EV: Launching this fall
2024 Chevy Silverado EV RST (source: Chevrolet)Chevy Blazer EV (source: GM)Chevy Equinox EV (source: GM)
After selling over 20,000 EVs for the first time in a quarter in Q1, GM lifted guidance with plans to produce 50,000 electric models in North America in the first half of 2023 and 100,000 in the second half of the year.
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On today’s road-ready episode of Quick Charge, Tesla released data hinting that its Autopilot ADAS solution may be less safe to use than before. We’ve also got some news from inside the Tesla diner experience, plus a 250,000 mile Ford Mustang Mach-E that still has more than 90% of its battery capacity left!
We also cover Lucid’s plans to reinvigorate American EV manufacturing WITHOUT help from Washington by forging stronger bonds between automakers, mineral miners, and battery recyclers – plus: Optimus breaks down.
New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (most weeks, anyway). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.
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Renewables continued to dominate fossil fuels on price in 2024, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The big takeaway: Clean energy is the cheapest power around – by a wide margin. So it’s pretty bad business that the biggest grid upgrade project in US history just got kneecapped by Trump’s Department of Energy to stop the “green scam.”
On average, solar power was 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel in 2024, and onshore wind was 53% cheaper. Onshore wind held its spot as the most affordable new source of electricity at $0.034 per kilowatt-hour, with solar close behind at $0.043/kWh.
IRENA’s report says global renewables added 582 gigawatts (GW) of capacity last year, which avoided about $57 billion in fossil fuel costs. That’s not a small dent. Even more impressive: 91% of all new renewable power projects built in 2024 were cheaper than any new fossil fuel option.
Technological innovation, strong supply chains, and economies of scale are driving the cost advantage. Battery prices are helping too: IRENA says utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) are now 93% cheaper than they were in 2010, with prices averaging $192/kWh in 2024.
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But it’s not all smooth sailing. The report flags short-term cost pressures from trade tensions, material bottlenecks, and rising costs in some regions. North America and Europe feel more squeezed than others due to permitting delays, limited grid capacity, and higher system costs.
Meanwhile, countries in Asia, Africa, and South America could see faster cost drops thanks to stronger learning rates and abundant solar and wind resources.
One big challenge is financing. In developing countries, high interest rates and perceived investor risk inflate the levelized cost of electricity of renewables. For example, wind power generation costs were about the same in Europe and Africa last year ($0.052/kWh), but financing made up a much larger share of project costs in Africa. IRENA estimates the cost of capital was just 3.8% in Europe but 12% in Africa.
And even if projects are affordable to build, many are getting stuck in grid connection queues or stalled by slow permitting. Those “integration costs” are now a major hurdle, especially in fast-growing G20 and emerging markets.
Tech is helping with some of that – hybrid solar-wind-storage setups and AI-powered tools are improving grid performance and project efficiency. But digital infrastructure and grid modernization still lag in many places, holding renewables back.
“Renewables are rising, the fossil fuel age is crumbling,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “But leaders must unblock barriers, build confidence, and unleash finance and investment.”
IRENA’s bottom line is that the economics of renewables are stronger than ever, but to keep the momentum going, governments and markets need to reduce risks, streamline permitting, and invest in grids.
Electrek’s Take
Speaking of unblocking barriers and investment, the opposite just happened today in Trump World. The Department of Energy just canceled a $4.9 billion conditional loan commitment for the 800-mile Grain Belt Express Phase 1 transmission project, the biggest transmission line in US history.
It’s a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line connecting Kansas wind farms across four states. It will connect four grids, improving reliability. It will be able to power 50 data centers and create 5,500 jobs. Phase 1 is due to start next year.
The new grid will also connect all forms of energy, not just renewables, and it’s super pathetic that Invenergy had to stoop to put up a map on the project’s home page today showing how it will transmit fossil fuels, the “existing dispatchable generation source,” and felt it had to leave renewables off the map entirely. Sorry, Kansas wind farms, you get no mention because this administration doesn’t like you.
Chicago-based Invenergy plans to build the 5 GW Grain Belt Express in phases from Kansas to Illinois. The company says the project will save customers $52 billion in energy costs over 15 years. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) complained to Trump about the project, calling it a “green scam,” and got the government loan canceled based on a lie, claiming it would cost taxpayers “billions.” This was Invenergy’s response on X:
This is bizarre. Senator Hawley is attempting to kill the largest transmission infrastructure project in U.S. history, which is already approved by all four states and is aligned with the President’s energy dominance agenda. Senator Hawley is trying to deprive Americans of… pic.twitter.com/ZLwTNUGZxA
As usual, Trump was swayed by the last person in the room, and Hawley shot an entire region in the foot when an upgraded grid and more renewables are needed more than ever. Hopefully, this project can continue despite the ignorant shortsightedness coming from the Republicans (who ironically released an AI Action Plan today).
It beggars belief that this political party is this isolated from the rest of the world – well, besides our besties Iran, Libya, and Yemen, who aren’t part of the Paris Agreement either – and being that the US is the world’s No 2 polluter, the world will suffer for its arrogance.
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Earnings are down 23% on falling electric vehicle sales and lower margins, but Tesla’s stock is not crashing because CEO Elon Musk is promising a return to earnings growth through autonomous driving and humanoid robots.
We previously reported on how Tesla’s Robotaxi effort is a major shift in strategy for Tesla, which has been promising unsupervised self-driving in its customer vehicles for years.
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Instead, the Robotaxi service consists of an internal fleet operating within a geo-fenced area, currently only in Austin, Texas, and powered by teleoperation and in-car supervisors with a finger on a kill switch at all times.
“I believe half of the population of the US will be covered by Tesla’s Robotaxi by the end of the year.”
He added that he believes that regulatory approval will be the biggest hurdle, even though Tesla’s current service requires a Tesla employee in each car, which is a major hurdle to scaling.
Musk and Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of self-driving, both claimed that the Bay Area will be the first market where Tesla plans to expand its Robotaxi service. However, Elluswamy added that the program will initially have a driver in the driver’s seat.
This is laughable. Who believes that? How can Elon say that with a straight face when Tesla only has a joke of a system that requires supervision at all times?
For context, Tesla currently only operates in a little over half of Austin, Texas. Here’s the list of all the metro areas Tesla would need to launch Robotaxi by the end of the year to cover half of the US population:
Rank
Metro Area
Population
Cumulative Total
1
New York
19.15 M
19.15 M
2
Los Angeles
12.68 M
31.83 M
3
Chicago
9.04 M
40.87 M
4
Houston
6.89 M
47.76 M
5
Dallas–Fort Worth
6.73 M
54.49 M
6
Miami
6.37 M
60.86 M
7
Atlanta
6.27 M
67.13 M
8
Philadelphia
5.86 M
72.99 M
9
Washington, DC
5.60 M
78.59 M
10
Phoenix
4.83 M
83.42 M
11
Boston
4.40 M
87.82 M
12
Seattle
3.58 M
91.40 M
13
Detroit
3.54 M
94.94 M
14
San Diego
3.37 M
98.31 M
15
San Francisco
3.36 M
101.67 M
16
Tampa
3.04 M
104.71 M
17
Minneapolis–St. Paul
2.62 M
107.33 M
18
St. Louis
2.80 M
110.13 M
19
Denver
2.99 M
113.12 M
20
Baltimore
2.83 M
115.95 M
21
Orlando
2.76 M
118.71 M
22
Charlotte
2.75 M
121.46 M
23
San Antonio
2.60 M
124.06 M
24
Austin
2.42 M
126.48 M
25
Pittsburgh
2.43 M
128.91 M
26
Sacramento
2.42 M
131.33 M
27
Las Vegas
2.32 M
133.65 M
28
Cincinnati
2.26 M
135.91 M
29
Kansas City
2.19 M
138.10 M
30
Columbus
2.14 M
140.24 M
31
Cleveland
2.16 M
142.40 M
32
Indianapolis
2.12 M
144.52 M
33
San José
1.99 M
146.51 M
34
Virginia Beach–Norfolk
1.76 M
148.27 M
35
Providence
1.68 M
149.95 M
36
Milwaukee
1.57 M
151.52 M
37
Jacksonville
1.60 M
153.12 M
38
Raleigh–Durham
1.45 M
154.57 M
39
Nashville
1.43 M
156.00 M
40
Oklahoma City
1.42 M
157.42 M
41
Richmond
1.30 M
158.72 M
42
Louisville
1.28 M
160.00 M
43
Salt Lake City
1.26 M
161.26 M
44
New Orleans
1.23 M
162.49 M
45
Hartford
1.20 M
163.69 M
46
Buffalo
1.11 M
164.80 M
47
Birmingham
1.10 M
165.90 M
This is ridiculous. The lies are becoming increasingly larger and more brazen. We know what that means.
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