General Motors unveiled its all-new modular platform and battery system, Ultium, on March 4, 2020 at the Tech Center campus in Warren, Michigan.
Photo by Steve Fecht for General Motors
DETROIT — General Motors will drop the “Ultium” name for its EV batteries and support technologies after years of promoting the brand as it re-examines EV and battery operations.
The Detroit automaker confirmed the change Tuesday ahead of an investor event. Executives used the day to discuss lowering battery costs and highlight efforts to diversify battery chemistry.
GM also confirmed that it is on pace to produce and wholesale about 200,000 electric vehicles for North America this year, achieving profitability on a production, or contribution margin, basis by the end of this year.
In addition to electric vehicles, GM touted lower capital costs and the company’s flexibility to produce both traditional internal combustion engine vehicles and EVs. Its commitment to electric vehicles comes amid slower-than-expected adoption of electric vehicles.
Shares of GM were roughly flat except up about 3% at the start of the event.
GM shares
The change to Ultium comes after GM spent billions of dollars developing internal batteries and “Ultium” technologies that the automaker had previously touted as “revolutionary” and the ultimate technologies to build a profitable EV business.
The company said the batteries and technologies will remain, but the “Ultium” name will not, except for manufacturing operations such as the “Ultium Cells” joint ventures with LG Energy Solution.
“As GM continues to expand its electric vehicle business, the company is no longer branding EV architecture, batteries and cells, or EV components with the Ultium name, beginning in North America,” the company said in a statement. .
GM is reviewing its EV battery strategy amid changing market conditions and an influx of new, outside executives, including Tesla veterans JP Clausen, who now heads GM production, and Kurt Kelty, GM’s vice president of batteries.
The automaker’s EV sales are growing, but not at the pace the company wanted. It reported a roughly 60% year-over-year increase in EVs in the third quarter, to around 32,100 units sold. However, electric vehicles made up only 4.9% of the company’s total sales in the third quarter.
The 200.00 EV target reaffirmed by GM CEO Mary Barra on Tuesday is down from a previous guidance of 200.00 to 250,000 EVs, which had been cut from 300,000 units.
GM has already begun moving away from the original Ultium case cells, produced with LG using nickel manganese cobalt, to other battery types and chemistries.
GM earlier this year announced a more than $3 billion deal to make hard-case batteries, known as prismatic cells, with LG rival Samsung SDI of South Korea.
“We’re moving from a single-source, single-form, single-chemistry agent to a multi-chemistry, multi-form, multi-vendor strategy,” Kelty said. The Information in a report published on Monday. “What we’re going to do going forward is really optimize for each vehicle.”
Will Ferrell will star in GM’s upcoming Super Bowl ad, an extension of the company’s “Everybody In” ad campaign for electric vehicles.
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The automaker is turning to this optimization strategy after spending millions of dollars on marketing and advertising, including running Super Bowl ads in 2021 and 2022 for Ultium in vehicles that were not yet available for customers to buy.
GM is also reviewing other areas. Rory Harvey, GM’s president of global markets, including North America, confirmed to CNBC in September that the company is completely rethinking its plans for a second all-electric vehicle plant in Orion Township, Michigan — from production to the entire supply chain .
“We’re always learning lessons. We’re always learning,” he said in September. “The reason we’re doing what we’re doing with Orion is the fact that, you know, if you look at the initial slope of EV adoption, there’s no question that, both in the industry and ours, it was slightly more aggressive than it is ».
“That gives us the ability to take a breather and refocus and say what’s right for the customer requirements that exist today?” he said.
GM currently has one factory in the US that produces all-electric vehicles, Factory Zero in Detroit. The Orion plant was expected to be the second by the end of 2024 before the company delayed those plans by at least a year.