
GM, LG to Spend $2.3B on Venture to Make Electric-Car Batteries - KFC_Manager
https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/2019120510724/gm-lg-to-spend-23-billion-on-venture-to-make-electric-car-batteries-5th-update
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csours
Disclaimer: I work for GM, any opinions are my own; I have no special
knowledge of this deal.

Vehicle launches are generally prepared starting 5 years out with defined
components. This creates a special challenge when interfacing with quickly
changing technology.

I don't have a publicly available source for this, so take it with a grain of
salt, but I've heard that for every new battery pack released, there have been
serious, funded plans for 2 or 3 other pack, battery form factor, or chemistry
updates. The technology for each simply moves too fast to integrate at the
pack level, much less the vehicle level.

As an example: the Model Year 2017 Bolt EV released with 238 miles of range,
and the 2020 bumped that to 259, without changing the module or pack form
factor. It's an incremental advance to be sure, but ~10% without adding
modules is pretty dang good.

~~~
cogman10
Things to consider.

BEVs are far simpler than regular cars. Particularly ones that aren't
retrofitted on older chassis. There are simply far fewer parts to deal with.

Chemistry for batteries doesn't really matter all that much when thinking
about compatibility. Do you care about the chemistry of any given AA? Probably
not. Batteries and battery packs are right there in the same wheelhouse.
Whether a chemistry gives you 1wH or 20wH really doesn't matter if the form
factor and voltages are all the same.

Tesla packs are a good example of this. The chemistry has changed pretty
drastically from 2012->today. Yet the pack form factor for Model S and X is
the same. It only recently changed with the Model 3 (and they are still
producing S and Xes).

~~~
csours
> BEVs are far simpler than regular cars. Particularly ones that aren't
> retrofitted on older chassis. There are simply far fewer parts to deal with.

Sure, but you've still got to figure out which parts to use and how to put
them together. Automakers have over a century of calibrating ICE propulsion,
so the incremental change in calibration for an ICE is very small. Calibrating
EVs may be much easier, but the incremental change is huge for legacy
automakers. As an aside, even Tesla cheerleaders should be happy that legacy
automakers are entering the EV space. Competition is great for the consumer.

> Chemistry for batteries doesn't really matter all that much when thinking
> about compatibility.

I mean, sure, all batteries will deliver "electricity", but engineering is all
about balancing conflicting requirements. You want low volume, low weight, low
risk of "thermal events", high energy capacity, high discharge rate, high
charge rate, high charge cycle count, etc etc etc.

> Tesla packs are a good example of this. ... Yet the pack form factor for
> Model S and X is the same.

I'd say this is a good example of the cost of engineering. On the one hand, if
it ain't broke don't fix it. On the other hand, customers continue to demand
better vehicles, especially as competitors enter the market.

~~~
cogman10
I think you missed my point just a little.

It's true that if you designed a EV battery pack to be one solid anode and
cathode, you might have to worry considerably about the chemistry that makes
up the pack.

That, however, isn't how anyone is building packs (that I know of). EV
manufacturers are all pushing for packs made of modules made of cells. The
cells that they are making are quite literally a typical form factor
(Typically 18650s)

Yes, you have to figure out how to put together your pack of 18650s and how to
cool/heat them. However, what you don't have to worry about is what chemistry
goes into them. That's an upstream supply concern. A 10% bump in storage can
be gained with better chemistry, it doesn't require that you completely
redesign your pack with each new chemistry. As a bonus, that also means you
can source your cells from multiple manufactures, because they are all pushing
out the same form factor.

~~~
davidgould
> cells that they are making are quite literally a typical form factor
> (Typically 18650s)

Typically cylindrical cells like 18650 or 21700 for Tesla, everyone else is
using pouches or prismatic cells. Of course, based on sales the typical EV is
a Tesla.

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cowmix
Man, to think everyone in the industry said the Tesla gigafactory was a
mistake or a waste.

~~~
vladimirralev
The industry was right back in 2015-2016. The gigactory was supposed to have
capacity 150Gwh/year by now. This is what they called a mistake and a waste.
The current gigafactory operates at less than 40Gwh/year (as of August 2019),
which is the reasonable quote. And a darker interpretation of this is that
Tesla knowingly deceived the state about the size in order to be granted more
incentives with no intention of ever achieving this size.

~~~
Veedrac
Source? From October 2014:

> The automaker says that by 2020, the factory will be shipping out 35GWh of
> cells and 50GWh of packs per year.

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/panasonic-to-pour-billions-
of-...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/panasonic-to-pour-billions-of-yen-in-
teslas-gigafactory-as-initial-investment/)

~~~
WhompingWindows
There seems to be contradictions on the Wiki article about Gigafactory 1...

"Its projected capacity for 2018 is 50 (GWh)/yr of battery packs, and its
final capacity upon completion was, as of May 2016, planned to be 150 GWh/yr
of battery packs.[39] This would enable Tesla to produce 1,500,000 cars per
year."

But after this quote, they failed to verify the initial numbers, so maybe
there is some whitewashing of those facts?

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elihu
Good. They make some interesting batteries with unusual specs.

Here's a 38 pound battery pack that can allegedly source 800 amps (briefly),
with a nominal voltage of 60.8. That's crazy. You could run a car off of about
three of these. It wouldn't go very far, but still. It's kind of the exact
opposite of the Tesla approach, which is to use cells with low-ish power
density, but to make up for it by using huge battery packs.

[https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=4&prod...](https://www.evwest.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=4&products_id=481)

~~~
csours
FYI, LG Chem makes the current batteries for the Chevy Bolt EV

~~~
elihu
Also, the Chrysler Pacifica hybrid. I'm not sure if those are the same cells
used in the Bolt, but Pacifica battery packs are where a lot those LG chem
batteries on the used market come from.

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bryanlarsen
There are battery factories in China coming online in the next couple of years
that make the Gigafactory look small. I expect that batteries will follow a
boom/bust cycle like DRAM does.

~~~
mdorazio
Depends on the timing with respect to market demand / production volume of
EVs. As battery prices come down due to increased production / economies of
scale, EV demand will go up so it _could_ be a smooth transition. It could
also turn into a glut/bust scenario like you say, but I think we'll see the
factories scale up production to meet demand rather than running at 100% from
day 1.

~~~
magduf
Batteries have uses other than EVs, with a big one being power storage.
There's a big push to reduce fossil fuel usage and get more power from
renewables (solar/wind), but these aren't constant sources of power, so
massive banks of batteries would be very useful here for utility-scale use of
renewables without needing nuclear or fossil fuel plants for a baseline.

~~~
jersey
With V2G, EVs and power storage are one and the same.

~~~
singularity2001
the last time I checked the CTO of Tesla said that vehicle2grid had negative
return on investment but that might have been politically motivated.

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neonate
[http://archive.is/85M0J](http://archive.is/85M0J)

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WhompingWindows
Does anyone know more details about what kind of batteries these are going to
be?

~~~
cowmix
Probably some version of the pouch cell type.

~~~
ChrisClark
Yeah, that's what most cars using LG's batteries use, right?

Though they must have the cylindrical too, since LG is currently making the
cells for the Model 3 in China before Tesla starts their own production there.

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ianai
What are the current avenues for us regular people to invest in companies
doing battery R&D? I found the lgclf stock, but that doesn’t seem right from
my low knowledge level.

~~~
jersey
Invest in Tesla? They have made several acquisitions related to battery R&D
and are likely moving to producing their own batteries.

~~~
ianai
That’s one way, for sure. But that stock is already well known.

~~~
pmorici
I'm not sure if it is still true but up until the past month or two Tesla was
the most shorted stock in the market and you couldn't watch CNBC for 30
minutes w/o a talking head positing that it would go bankrupt before the year
was out. Fast forward to today and every automaker is falling all over
themselves to copy the Tesla model and Tesla has positive cash flow and $5.3
billion cash on hand.

~~~
jfengel
Not the most shorted, but up there. It was #50 on a list back in August
([https://seekingalpha.com/article/4285222-heavily-shorted-
sto...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4285222-heavily-shorted-stocks-
august-2019)). Today it has dropped off that list: its short ratio is still
20% but the bottom of that list is now at 24%. That 20% figure has been
relatively constant.

Top of the list: GameStop, followed by Bed Bath & Beyond.

~~~
OnlineGladiator
I love how almost every company on that list has a market cap around $1
billion, and then there is Tesla with a market cap over $40 billion.

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madengr
Sorry, I don't believe it. I just sold my GM stock at 10% loss. I bought it
thinking they were actually going to invest in EVs and self driving. Instead
they have been pumping out trucks and SUV, while killing the Volt. Screw GM;
the federal government should have let them sink.

~~~
WhompingWindows
One could argue they needed to continue making some trucks and SUVs until they
have a positive margin on their EVs...They can't just shutter all their
profit-makers immediately, how would they fund their EV future? What I DO
agree about, though, is that they should have kept the Volt and they should
have made the Bolt look less ugly.

~~~
Tempest1981
> Bolt look less ugly

People I talk to say that it looks "tiny" and toy-like. Not so much ugly.
Also, fun to drive.

Maybe they can beef up the look a bit -- this Hyundai Kona EV is the same
size, but looks better (the SUV look may appeal to GM buyers):
[https://www.consumerreports.org/hybrids-evs/2019-hyundai-
kon...](https://www.consumerreports.org/hybrids-evs/2019-hyundai-kona-ev-
first-drive-review/)

~~~
danans
I test drove the Kona EV and it's quite a fun car. Hard to find one, though.

