GM ditches failed Ultium battery branding as its EV sales soar
General Motors is shaking up its electric vehicle strategy once again. Despite bumper EV sales in 2024, the US automaker told investors yesterday that it will stop branding its batteries under the Ultium name. Perhaps more consequentially, it’s also abandoning its one-cell-type-fits-all strategy and will embrace a wider range of cell chemistries and physical formats in forthcoming EVs.
GM debuted the Ultium brand in March 2020 as part of a much-hyped EV plan that was supposed to see 22 new electric models on sale in the US by 2023. The company formed a $2.3 billion joint venture with LG Chem, called Ultium Cells LLC, and decided on a family of common batteries across its brands, using a nickel manganese cobalt aluminum chemistry in a pouch cell format that could be combined in modules for packs as small as 50 kWh or larger than 200 kWh, as found in the Hummer and Silverado EVs.
Most importantly, GM chair and CEO Mary Barra said that Ultium cells would drop below the important $100/kWh barrier “early in the platform’s life.”
