General Motors has just announced its latest and likely final piece in what now appears to be a three-pronged cell-chemistry strategy to power GM’s lineup of a dozen EVs through the end of the decade and beyond.
GM has stated today it will build low-cost lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells in Spring Hill, Tennessee, starting in late 2027. Conversion of cell lines to produce that chemistry will begin later this year. The cell plant at the Spring Hill complex is owned and operated by Ultium Cells, GM’s joint-venture battery company with LG Energy Solution. A GM assembly plant in the same complex builds the Cadillac Lyriq and Acura ZDX electric SUVs.
Under Kurt Kelty, GM vice president of battery, propulsion, and sustainability, the company has diversified from its previous strategy of “one cell for all EVs.” Kelty was hired in February 2024 after stints at Tesla and Panasonic, and is widely respected in the industry.
The LFP cells made by Ultium are expected to be used in the updated 2026 Chevrolet Bolt EV, which GM should reveal within two to three months. It will go into production in a Kansas plant before the end this year. For its first two years,
it will have to use LFP cells imported from another LG plant—potentially one in South Korea. Those imports let GM get inexpensive iron-phosphate batteries onto US roads a full three years before its next cell chemistry, called LMR, which it says costs no more than LFP, but has higher energy density.
Still, converting a plant—at an unspecified cost—to build LFP cells suggests they will be used in the lineup for a while.
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