An electric vehicle battery plant in Lansing will soon officially have new owners.
General Motors started building its Ultium Cells facility in 2022 in partnership with South Korean-based company LG Energy Solution.
The automaker announced in December it would sell its stake in the venture to its partner.
WKAR's Sophia Saliby spoke with Paula Gardner, a business reporter for Bridge Michigan who has reported on the plant and the auto industry.
Interview Highlights
On why GM sold its stake in the Lansing plant
Under Ultium, it had planned for four different factories, and two are up and running. Lansing was supposed to be the third, and then there was a fourth. With what was up and running, capacity was being met, and they had years of capacity available to them based on sales trends. So, they did decide to exit the Lansing factory, sell to their partner and then, as CEO Mary Barra has said kind of reallocate their capital to items that would actually sell sooner.
On if Michigan politicians might pull back from the EV industry
I think it's going to be very hard for politicians to say that they do not support EV growth, given all of the money and all of the resources that have poured into the state, in large part because of the governor and the legislature to grow our EV infrastructure. However, I think the federal policy is going to change a lot of what is available, and also what just market forces demand from the EV infrastructure that Michigan has set up. I think it's all in flux right now.
On the changing auto industry amid tariffs
What weighs on my mind is how it was January of 2022 when Michigan Democrats and Republicans were wildly cheering this General Motors battery factory. And it was presented as a very big deal, and it was presented as something that was going to create a lot of jobs, and the automaker, General Motors, was just absolutely all in on it. And we're looking at it today, and it's not in production. And I just think that all of the tariff moves, there's a story to tell in how long it takes to actually make a change in American manufacturing, especially at this scale, and that is something that is going to play out, particularly in Michigan, over many, many years to come.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: An electric vehicle battery plant in Lansing will soon officially have new owners.
General Motors started building its Ultium Cells facility in 2022 in partnership with South Korean-based company LG Energy Solution. The automaker announced last December it would sell its stake in the venture to its partner.
Paula Gardner is a business reporter for Bridge Michigan who has reported on this story. Thank you for joining me.
Paula Gardner: Oh, happy to be here. Thank you.
Saliby: Why did GM say it was getting out of this venture last year?
Gardner: General Motors aligned a lot of battery production under the Ultium brand, and it decided to change the brand and move into different types of battery production. But under Ultium, it had planned for four different factories, and two are up and running. Lansing was supposed to be the third, and then there was a fourth.
With what was up and running, capacity was being met, and they had years of capacity available to them based on sales trends. So, they did decide to exit the Lansing factory, sell to their partner and then, as CEO Mary Barra has said kind of reallocate their capital to items that would actually sell sooner.
Saliby: GM originally said it would open this facility in late 2024. Obviously, that didn't happen. What is the status of the plant now?
Gardner: The new owners say that they are ramping up. They're pretty much done with construction. They're installing equipment now, and they do expect to be at least prototyping by the end of this year, if not producing more with full on manufacturing in '26.
Saliby: Both GM and LG Energy Solution got hundreds of millions of dollars in state incentives to open this plant. Is the state going to lose out on that money as well as the jobs promised with it opening?
Gardner: It's going to take many years to understand whether we're going to lose out on that money. The company promised over 1,300 jobs.
It's just getting started there and hiring 1,300 people in an industry where the growth has been slow, we're going to have to watch that for many years.
Saliby: It seems like electric vehicles were going to remain a focus if former Vice President Kamala Harris won the presidency, but under this second Trump administration, there's a clear shift away.
Do you think state leaders like Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who championed EV infrastructure, will also pull back with this change in federal policy?
Gardner: We're still seeing a verbal commitment from Michigan today toward EV growth, and I think it's going to be very hard for politicians to say that they do not support EV growth, given all of the money and all of the resources that have poured into the state, in large part because of the governor and the legislature to grow our EV infrastructure.
However, I think the federal policy is going to change a lot of what is available, and also what just market forces demand from the EV infrastructure that Michigan has set up. I think it's all in flux right now. I think there's a lot to be decided over coming years.
And we may hear a lot of optimism, but I think privately, some of that may be tempered or maybe perhaps stretched out over time, as opposed to the imminent EV need that Michigan is able to fulfill, that we have heard for several years now.
Saliby: You're also reporting, of course, on tariffs. How do you feel about how these big automakers, as well as the UAW are kind of reacting to these tariffs that may or may not be happening, we don't know, that change a little bit every day?
Gardner: Yeah, I woke up this morning and caught up to what changed in the last 24 hours, basically, and I guess what weighs on my mind is how it was January of 2022 when Michigan Democrats and Republicans were wildly cheering this General Motors battery factory. And it was presented as a very big deal, and it was presented as something that was going to create a lot of jobs, and the automaker, General Motors, was just absolutely all in on it.
And we're looking at it today, and it's not in production. And I just think that all of the tariff moves, there's a story to tell in how long it takes to actually make a change in American manufacturing, especially at this scale, and that is something that is going to play out, particularly in Michigan, over many, many years to come.
Saliby: Paula Gardner reports on business for Bridge, Michigan. Thank you for being here.
Saliby: Thank you.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
