MNC and LMR and LFP makes three

GM’s LMR battery breakthrough means more range at a lower cost

Due in 2028, lithium manganese-rich means less cobalt—and therefore less weight.

Chad Kirchner – May 13, 2025 2:00 PM | 625

GM says it prototyped approximately 300 full-size LMR cells as it worked with LG Energy Solution to perfect the chemistry. Credit: Steve Fecht for General Motors

WARREN, Mich.—If you've been following General Motors' development of electric vehicles on its Ultium platform, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it hasn't gone entirely smoothly. While plagued by some initial hiccups, GM has worked through those issues and now has a total of 12 EVs on the road. By my count, that's nine more than Ford, the crosstown rival that had a significant lead in this generation of EVs.

Furthering GM's advancement is the development of new battery technologies. Kurt Kelty, the company's newest head of batteries (after spending 12 years at Tesla), told me that new technology is a way to get to mass adoption of EVs.

"There needs to be price parity between gasoline and electric," he told me. "Without the tax credit."

Right now, Kelty says the price differential between the two is around $7,500, which non-coincidentally is the amount of the current federal tax incentive. That's why new—and cheaper—technologies are important and the reason I went to GM's Warren Technical Center, where the company provided a sneak peek at its LMR battery technology.

"Our goal is to reduce cost," Kelty said. The company expects LMR to do just that.

LFP price + NCM range = LMR?

So what is LMR? Lithium manganese-rich is a lithium-ion technology designed to remove a significant amount of cobalt from the cathode, which reduces the cost of the battery to near LFP (lithium iron phosphate) levels, while maintaining more energy density.

"We expect to have near-NMC [nickel manganese cobalt] range for the price of an LFP battery," said Andy Oury from the company's battery team. While the company wouldn't talk about price numbers—the technology is set to appear in trucks in 2028—it said the range will be about 30 percent greater than today's maximum-range LFP packs.

A man peers through a shelf in a lab — General Motors battery technician Steven Petty Jr. focuses on aligning electrodes on an anode sample for a prototype LMR battery cell in the making. Credit: Steve Fecht for General Motors

GM will use prismatic cells for its LMR tech, and the packs will reduce in complexity from the setup in its current electric trucks. "We're reducing the number of cells to six, down from 24," Oury said. These new cells will live in the space currently occupied and exist alongside LFP and NMC batteries both in the showroom and on the assembly line.

So why not just use one big cell instead of the six separate prismatic ones?

Some automakers do that, but I was told the bifurcation of the pack is important to GM because the pack is a structural element of the vehicle. So while you can reduce some of the complexity, some needs to remain.

Removing the cobalt also reduces weight. Considering that the battery in the Hummer EV weighs as much as a Honda Civic, any weight savings is appreciated.

On a truck like the Silverado EV, NMC batteries would still be offered to those who want the most range, 400 miles (643 km) or more. The LMR will be offered as an in-between at around 350 miles (536 km), with LFP as the entry-level offering.

GM wouldn't elaborate when I asked why LMR couldn't be the base chemistry across the entire fleet since more range for the same price as LFP seems like the holy grail of battery tech. The company said it has its reasons for why the tech is appearing in the trucks but not in a crossover like the Equinox EV or the upcoming Chevrolet Bolt.

Made in the USA

One additional advantage of the technology for GM is that it is able to localize the sourcing of materials and production. It has invested in manganese supplier Element 25, allowing the latter to build a facility in Louisiana that will ultimately supply GM with enough manganese sulfate to make a million batteries a year in North America.

Kelty told me that onshoring battery production has several benefits. First, it reduces shipping costs significantly. Putting components on a boat and sending everything across an ocean is expensive and time-consuming.

That transit time can be a real problem if there's an issue with a batch of batteries. Since the supply chain is long, there could be good batteries at different points in shipping that will be destroyed. With a shorter chain, fewer batteries are in shipment at any given time, reducing the number of lost batteries due to isolating and fixing defects, should they occur.

Kelty also believes it just makes sense to localize production. He pointed out that when consumer electronics with batteries took off, the supply chain developed around the customers in Southeast Asia. The customers, in that case, are the electronics manufacturers. He said the same thing makes sense in the United States.

There might be an inclination to give President Trump and his administration credit for this onshoring initiative, but the company has been working on localizing battery production for years. Even development on the LMR battery technology had been happening long before the current administration took over.

A battery technician at the General Motors Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center takes a chemistry slurry sample. Credit: Steve Fecht for General Motors

That research and development of new technologies remains ongoing. In addition to testing battery cells in every known condition on Earth, GM can produce packs in production-ready format on site in Warren, just at a slower pace, to fine-tune the process and ensure a better-quality product. The company is currently working on a facility that will be able to make production-quality batteries at production speeds, so when a new line or a new plant is brought online somewhere else, all the kinks will already have been worked out.

GM's LMR batteries feel like a logical evolution of the lithium-ion batteries that appear in EVs already. The company now has the facilities to build the highest-quality battery solution that it can. It's also clear that the company has been working on this for quite some time.

If this all sounds like what Ford announced recently, it is. For its part, Ford says its research is not a lab experiment and that it will appear in vehicles before the end of the decade. While I can't say who landed on the technology first, it's clear that GM has a production plan and knows what specific products you'll see it in to start.

A building with a truck in front of it. — General Motors Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center focuses on advanced technical work for cutting-edge battery technology and prototyping full-size cells. Credit: General Motors

If LMR delivers on the promise, we'll have a battery technology that delivers more range for less money. If there's one takeaway from talking to the folks working on batteries in Warren, it's that their guiding star is to make EVs affordable.

Kelty even challenged the room full of reporters. "Can anybody name a reason why you would not buy an EV if it's price parity with ICE? I'll argue it," he said.

Kelty also hinted at some upcoming technology to help GM's batteries work better in sub-optimal weather conditions, though he wouldn't comment or elaborate on future products.

We're still a couple of years away from production, but if General Motors can deliver on the tech, we'll be one step closer to mainstream adoption.

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