On Wednesday afternoon in Warren, Michigan, General Motors announced it has developed a new, third-generation battery electric vehicle platform (called BEV3) and a new flexible battery architecture—called Ultium—that will underpin a wide range of new BEVs across the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC brands. It's the latest in a series of recent announcements by GM regarding its electrified future; in December 2019, the carmaker revealed a $2.3 billion joint venture with LG Chem to build a battery factory in Lordstown, Ohio, then followed that in January with plans to spend $2.2 billion refitting its Detroit-Hamtramck factory to exclusively build BEVs.

Breaking the $100/kWh barrier

GM has gone for a pouch cell design for the Ultium batteries, which can be configured in different ways depending on the vehicle and its needs. For a big pickup or SUV, that means pouches arranged vertically in the modules (i.e., with their second-longest edge vertically), which GM says is best for energy density, but at the tradeoff of a taller pack. For cars that need something a little lower profile, the pouches can be stacked on top of each other in a module. GM says that a car would use between six and 12 modules in a pack, with up to 24 in a 200kWh, 800V double-layer battery pack for something like the 1,000hp electric GMC Hummer that was trailed at this year's Super Bowl. (The smallest six-module packs would be 50kWh units.)

The battery modules also include their own battery-management electronics. That has cut the amount of wiring in a pack by 88 percent over the current Chevrolet Bolt EV battery pack. GM says that if you have to replace an individual module within a battery pack, the electronics can talk to each other and recalibrate the pack easily. That's because each module knows what kind of chemistry its cells use.

The cells, developed with LG Chem, use an NMCA chemistry, which uses a combination of nickel, manganese, cobalt, and aluminum for the cathode. GM says it has reduced the use of cobalt by 70 percent compared to the cells in a Chevrolet Bolt EV and that it plans to source as many of the raw materials from North America as possible. GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra told attendees at the announcement that Ultium batteries will be able to breach the much-anticipated $100/kWh barrier "early in the platform's life," which would be a significant achievement. Some think that Tesla is also closing in on that magic number, although others in the industry are far less confident of seeing costs fall that much in the next few years.

I’ve heard this one before

These new Ultium batteries were developed hand-in-hand with a new flexible electric vehicle architecture called BEV3. In addition to three different styles of battery pack, there are a number of electric motors for use with BEV3, allowing for front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, or performance AWD powertrains. This will give rise to everything from compact, affordable EVs to expensive, long-range luxury machines, plus the big trucks and SUVs that still have the US car buyer in thrall. We'll see the first of these in April, when Cadillac shows off the Lyriq, an electric SUV. The following month, GMC will unveil a reborn electric Hummer—yes, with 1,000hp (746kW). There's no firm date yet for either of those BEVs appearing in showrooms, although a refreshed Bolt EV is scheduled to arrive before the end of this year. That will continue to use GM's existing second-generation BEV platform.

I certainly hope GM makes good on these promises, but right now I'll wait until we see some of these cars progress past the concept stages before getting too excited. After all, in October 2017 I went to Warren to hear a similar story , except then it was 20 new EVs we were promised, including "two within 18 months". (It transpired much later that those two BEVs were strictly for Chinese consumption.) And despite Barra's praise for the loyalty of Bolt EV buyers and their importance to the company, sales of Chevrolet's once-innovative BEV have fallen year on year for the past two years, with what appears to be almost no corporate effort to reverse that trend. If GM really is serious about electrifying its various brands, it needs to go out there and persuade people to buy them.

Listing image by Steve Fecht for General Motors