- Ultium Cells’ battery factory in Ohio will once again churn out pouch cells for GM EVs.
- The joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution halted production in January.
- The Ohio plant is Ultium Cells’ first manufacturing facility, with an annual production capacity of over 45 gigawatt-hours.
Ultium Cells, the joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution, will restart production of battery cells at its facility in Warren, Ohio, after a seven-month hiatus caused by a drop in consumer demand for electric vehicles.
The assembly lines will restart next week, according to Tom Gallagher, vice president of operations for Ultium, quoted by Reuters. After the assembly lines start moving again, the facility will have 1,400 employees.
Ultium Cells LLC Battery Plant in Warren, Ohio
The Ohio plant, which manufactures large-format Nickel Cobalt Manganese Aluminum (NCMA) pouch cells for the majority of GM EVs, was shut down in January, and roughly 1,330 employees were laid off. The company said that the facility would be closed for six months due to weak demand caused by the cancellation of the $7,500 federal tax credit, but that timeline has now been exceeded by approximately one month.
Back in May, a small number of workers returned to work to prepare the factory for a potential production restart, Reuters reported. During the Ohio factory’s closure, GM also idled its EV plant in Detroit, limiting output of the GMC Hummer EV, GMC Sierra EV, and Cadillac Escalade IQ.
The GM-LGES joint venture operates a second battery factory in Tennessee. The facility was converted to produce packs for energy storage systems (ESS) and is slated to begin manufacturing low-cost lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cells for EVs by late 2027.
Separately, General Motors had partnered with Samsung SDI for battery cell production, but the South Korean battery manufacturer bought GM’s stake in the joint venture earlier this week. The two companies’ plant in Indiana, which is still under construction, was initially designed to make prismatic cells for EVs, but under the new ownership, it will be converted to manufacture cells for energy storage systems.
Sales of electric cars boomed in the fourth quarter of last year, when buyers rushed to take advantage of the federal tax credit before it was retired. The following quarter was a disaster across the board, but this year’s second quarter showed signs that the industry is slowly recovering, with Chevrolet and Cadillac among the brands that saw meaningful gains.
As a result, it’s no surprise that Ultium Cells will restart cell production in Ohio for nearly all of GM’s EVs. The Chevrolet Bolt is the exception, as its LFP battery pack has cells sourced from China.