September 30, 2026 - GM LMR Cells to Be Made In Tennessee in 2028

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 30, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. 

Within a few weeks of each other in early 2025, both General Motors and Ford announced that they were developing lithium manganese rich or LMR cells for future electric vehicles. Most of the batteries used in current EVs sold in North America are nickel-manganese-cobalt cathode chemistry, with about 80% of the cathode being nickel and the rest split between manganese and cobalt. While this mix provides good energy density, the nickel and cobalt are both quite costly and subject to significant price volatility. LMR cells use a significantly larger proportion of manganese compared to nickel. As of today, manganese ore is about $4.40 per metric tonne, while nickel is $16,000 per tonne, making it easy to see why manufacturers would prefer a high manganese content. 

LMR cells have the advantage of nearly the same energy density as NMC, with a price about a third lower and close to that of lithium iron phosphate. Since its initial announcement, Ford has offered few extra details about its LMR program, but GM has indicated it plans to rely on LMR for its larger EVs that need more energy capacity at a lower cost. GM has now also confirmed that, as has been rumored for some time, it will be producing LMR cells at the Spring Hill, Tennessee, Ultium Cells plant that is a joint venture with LG Energy Solution. 

The Spring Hill plant originally started production in 2024 of NMC pouch cells for EVs, but as the market for EVs in the U.S. failed to grow as fast as expected, some of the capacity has been switched over to LFP cells for energy storage systems. GM will now begin conversion of some of the capacity to LMR before the end of 2026, with production expected to begin in 2028. A significant portion of the cell assembly lines will need to be revamped since it currently produces pouch cells. The LMR cells will be prismatic cans. Spring Hill will likely be the first large-scale source of LMR cells in North America. 

Thanks for listening.