For nearly a century, Detroit automakers like General Motors led the world in engine design and mass manufacturing. That helped them maintain a large share of global car sales at least through the late 1990s, even as German and Japanese automakers entered the market.
Now, batteries are the competitive battleground, both for electric vehicles and storage. GM is betting that investing in next-generation technology is the best way to gain an edge, pouring $900 million into first-of-its-kind research and prototype facilities on the same campus where GM has innovated in cars for decades in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan.
The company has big ambitions, even as the final phase of the project is still under construction: multi-floor warehouses so large that one has its own substation, and is bustling inside with contractors, equipment suppliers, and HVAC technicians. GM aims to fill missing links in the U.S. battery supply chain that have forced the industry to rely on Asian cell makers — such as the South Korean and Japanese conglomerates LG and Panasonic, respectively, or China’s CATL and BYD.
Until now, North America has lacked some critical steps in the battery development pipeline that sit between the lab and churning out hundreds of thousands of full-sized battery packs per day at gigascale factories, GM officials told Latitude Media during a tour of its new campus last week. Those steps, described colloquially as “the Valley of Death,” involve testing larger and larger prototypes to ensure they are manufactured with the highest performance at the lowest possible cost.
