Cobalt? So yesterday. Nickel? Passé. It’s manganese that’s all the rage these days.
That’s one takeaway from recent announcements from General Motors and Ford about advancements in so-called lithium-manganese-rich, or LMR, battery cells for EVs that they’re racing to bring to market.
This innovation is sought-after in the EV sector because LMR cells promise to deliver impressive battery ranges for EVs while lowering costs. Reducing battery costs is a key goal across the automotive industry because batteries make up a significant chunk of the overall cost of EVs, and price is a barrier to higher EV adoption.
“It’s kind of the best of both worlds,” Sam Abuelsamid, VP of market research at Telemetry, told Tech Brew of manganese, a raw material used in lithium-ion batteries.
“It’s roughly the same cost as [a lithium iron phosphate] cell, but only slightly less energy density than nickel,” he said. “So it gives you the advantages of both.”
Breaking through: GM and LG Energy Solution—which have a battery-making joint venture called Ultium Cells—on May 13 announced plans to “commercialize [LMR] prismatic battery cells for future GM electric trucks and full-size SUVs” in what they described as “a new battery technology breakthrough.” GM said its goal is “to become the first automaker to deploy LMR batteries in EVs.”
Ultium Cells plans to start commercial production of LMR cells in the US by 2028, according to a news release, with pre-production slated to start by late 2027.
Their announcement came on the heels of Ford unveiling what it described as a “breakthrough” around LMR battery cells. The automaker said that it was working to scale LMR battery cells and integrate them into its EV lineup by decade’s end, according to a LinkedIn post by Charles Poon, Ford’s director of electrified propulsion engineering.
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“LMR is the answer to ‘what next?,’” Poon wrote. “Our goal is clear: to achieve cost parity with gasoline vehicles and deliver affordable customer solutions tailored to their needs. The introduction of LMR is a key enabler in offering electric vehicles that are both accessible and desirable.”
Higher energy, lower cost: Andy Oury, a battery engineer and business planning manager for GM’s VP of battery, propulsion, and sustainability, told Tech Brew that GM’s pursuit of LMR cells, which dates back to 2015, is driven by the goals of improving battery performance, establishing an independent supply chain in North America, and bringing down costs.
“We don’t think anybody’s making cheaper cells than we are,” he said. “We want to build on that by taking our cell costs lower, and by making sure we’re the leaders in battery pack costs.”
GM now has a dozen EVs on the market, all powered by nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries. Going forward, Oury said, the automaker wants to introduce options across its EV lineup by offering LFP and LMR battery cells as well.
Battery engineers, he said, worked for a long time to reduce the amount of cobalt—which is expensive, and the supply chain is rife with human-rights concerns—in battery cells. Now, they’re working to reduce nickel content and substitute it with manganese, which is cheap and easy to source in North America.
“Going forward, we’ll be offering multiple chemistries where NMC will continue to offer the longest range or fit into the tightest spaces for specialty and premium vehicles,” Oury said. “We’ll have LFP for entry-level vehicles. And then the new entry we’re talking about today, LMR, squarely in the middle. Hopefully we can take a really big chunk of the market with LMR.”