General Motors & Samsung SDI to Invest More than $3Bn to Expand US Battery Cell Manufacturing

General Motors Co. and Samsung SDI plan to invest more than $3 billion to build a new battery cell manufacturing plant in the United States that is targeted to begin operations in 2026. The plant will have more than 30 GWh of capacity.

It will bring GM’s total US battery cell capacity to about 160 GWh when it is at full production.

The companies plan to jointly operate the facility, and it is projected to have production lines to build nickel-rich prismatic and cylindrical cells.

GM and Samsung SDI are not announcing the location of the plant or employment projections at this time, however, the number of new jobs in construction and operations are expected to number in the thousands. 

As customer demand for EVs rises, GM will continue to scale its supply chain and operations, including cell production and vehicle assembly.

GM's Ultium Platform was strategically designed to accept multiple cell form factors and chemistries.

GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra. “GM’s supply chain strategy for EVs is focused on scalability, resiliency, sustainability and cost-competitiveness. Our new relationship with Samsung SDI will help us achieve all these objectives. The cells we will build together will help us scale our EV capacity in North America well beyond 1 million units annually.”

“It is a great pleasure to take the very first step to create a long-term industry-leading partnership with GM in the U.S. EV market,” adds Samsung SDI President and CEO, Yoon-ho Choi. “We will do our best to provide the products featuring the highest levels of safety and quality produced with our unrivalled technologies to help GM strengthen its leadership in the EV market.”

Doug Parks, GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, comments: “We will continue to scale production and optimize the chemistry of our pouch cells for performance, range and cost using new approaches pioneered at GM’s Wallace Battery Center and by our technology partners. The introduction of new cell form factors will allow us to expand into even more segments more quickly and integrate cells directly into battery packs to reduce weight, complexity and costs. With multiple strong cell partners, we can scale our EV business faster than we could going it alone.”

General Motors, its subsidiaries and its joint venture entities sell vehicles under Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Baojun and Wuling brands.