By Kyle Proffitt
January 3, 2025 | The 2024 Advanced Automotive Battery Conference was held December 9-12 in Las Vegas and included a range of speakers dedicated to topics influencing batteries in EVs. GM, Ford, and Redwood Materials shared perspectives on reducing EV costs, improving charging infrastructure, enabling vehicle-to-grid charging, and moving to local supply chains supported by recycled materials.
GM on Reducing EV Costs, Reliable Charging, and Local Supply Chain
Kurt Kelty, Vice President, Battery Cell and Pack at General Motors, talked about the current state of EV sales and progress, and how GM is investing in new technologies to drive increased adoption. At the outset, he acknowledged concerns about EV sales. “Let’s review what happened this year; there has been a lot of talk about slowdown in EV adoption,” he said. He referred to commentary that “the winter has approached for EVs”, but said that’s not that case at all, as the industry is still growing at 8-10% per year.
Kelty also noted the wider appearance EV trucks, with the release of the Tesla Cybertruck, Chevrolet Silverado Work Truck, and GMC Sierra. Another major boon (echoed a number of times at the conference) was the industry move to the NACS (Tesla style) charging standard. He described this as “super helpful to get unified around one standard for charging.” Kelty highlighted three main efforts GM is making to stay the course: 1) drive costs down; 2) improve the charger network; and 3) localize manufacturing in North America.
Cost Reduction
“We’ve got to make EVs equivalent or lower priced than ICE [internal combustion engine] vehicles,” Kelty said. He showed a promising graph of relative costs of EVs and ICE vehicles. While EV prices have been relatively flat recently, ICE vehicle costs have been steadily increasing. The difference between ICE vehicles and EVs in 2020 was about $16,000, whereas it’s now $7,000-$8,000. Combined with the $7,500 government incentive from with the Inflation Reduction Act, you “end up with equivalent pricing, essentially, as far as consumers are concerned,” Kelty said.
We’re thus nearing a kind of inflection point where prices of EVs are the same as ICE vehicles, Kelty said. But he was quick to remind the audience that it gets better as you drive. He showed data that ignored incentives and found that after 30-80,000 miles, the total cost of EV ownership is less. This break-even point is largely dependent on local gas prices, so it only takes 30-40,000 miles in Norway and Iceland where the gas prices are higher. And despite that the initial manufacture of EVs has a greater carbon footprint compared with ICE vehicles, the break-even point for CO2 emissions can occur within the first 10,000 miles, making them clear eco winners in normal vehicle lifetimes.
Kelty championed the R&D efforts at GM, starting with prototyping facilities where they manufacture anything from coin cells to 100-200 Ah pouch or prismatic cells and moving up to a 0.5 GWh pilot line that will come online in 2027. He explained that working through these facilities really helps GM to understand the different factors affecting cost and find ways to reduce it.
Improved Charging
“Outside of the supercharger, it’s not working… it’s getting a lot better,” Kelty said about the state of charging. As evidence of the improving environment, he said that there are over 40,000 plugs now available for DC fast charge throughout North America, compared to 30,000 last year. “And the newer ones that are going in are the higher power cable, you’re getting more and more of these 350-kW chargers,” he said. To further expand this network, GM is working with three main partners: EVGo, Pilot/FlyingJ, and Ionna.
Michael Maten, Director of EV Policy and Regulatory Affairs at GM, also spoke at the conference in more depth about these investments, highlighting the convenience of charging stations at these highway plazas that are well lit, covered, and have clean restrooms and increasingly fresh food and other amenities. Additionally, GM was given access to many Tesla Superchargers just a few months ago. “It really opens up a huge network of chargers for the non-Tesla owners,” Kelty commented.
Local Supply Chains
Kelty touted the benefits of developing local battery supply chains, an area of investment for GM. “The benefits we get on the supply chain are tremendous,” Kelty said, “by buying local materials, by transporting just locally, by reducing the whip that’s on the ocean.”
With this “whip”, Kelty is referring to the long lead times and the risk of being locked into material already in transit, a wave of incoming material. For instance, he said, you might have a quality control issue, “and you’ve got 6 weeks of material on the ocean that you can’t use.”
The benefits of the local chain outweigh added labor or construction costs, he says. Demonstrating this stance, GM is “the largest lithium ion manufacturer in North America, with our joint ventures with LG.” He added that, “we are also working closely with our partners here in North America on recycling.”
Future Plans and Efficiency
Kelty closed his time highlighting some of the advances at GM as well as in the greater industry. He cited the 10 GM EVs and the 130 industry-wide EVs available for purchase, and said it was a good year for GM, as “in the 3rd quarter, we became the second largest producer of EVs.” He was also hopeful for the future, pointing to the “over two dozen gigafactories that are under construction.”
As another avenue to reduced costs, GM is making efficiency improvements and adding options. For instance, the Silverado Work Truck, which was originally rated at 450 miles of range, is also being made with LFP batteries, which Kelty says should still allow about 350 miles of range and save $6,000 on the sticker. Also, without changing the vehicle aerodynamics, only tweaking parameters “around the motor, the inverter, the tires…”, they increased rated range for the standard version to 492 miles. These kinds of efficiency improvements can translate into smaller batteries to save cost. Finally, Kelty said GM’s recently announced move to prismatic cells will allow them to “build a much more efficient battery pack with less components.”
