GM backs EV battery startup Mitra Chem as it shifts future focus to cheaper materials

General Motors is investing in a Silicon Valley startup to assist it velocity growth of a extra inexpensive battery chemistry for its future electrical automobiles, the corporate stated on Wednesday.

GM will lead a $60 million funding in Mitra Chem, a two-year-old Mountain View, California, firm that makes use of synthetic intelligence to speed up growth of lithium-ion battery supplies.

Mitra Chem will assist the automaker develop superior iron-based cathode energetic supplies equivalent to lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP) that might be utilized in a few of GM’s next-generation Ultium batteries after 2025.

Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and manganese-enriched LMFP are inexpensive, extra sustainable options to the nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) combination utilized in many present EV battery cathodes. Iron-based batteries usually don’t retailer as a lot vitality, nonetheless.

LFP battery cells have been developed within the United States, however Chinese corporations equivalent to BYD and CATL at present dominate world manufacturing.

The new funding spherical for Mitra Chem “is a strategic investment that will further help reinforce GM’s efforts in EV batteries (and) accelerate our work on affordable battery chemistries like LMFP,” stated Gil Golan, GM vice chairman of expertise acceleration and commercialization.

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act “is one of the main drivers” in GM’s efforts with Mitra Chem and others to construct a U.S.-based provide chain for LFP batteries and next-generation supplies, Golan stated. The IRA gives incentives for battery supplies, parts, cells and packs which are sourced in North America.

Golan stated batteries created from iron-rich supplies developed with Mitra Chem may seem in some GM automobiles within the second half of the last decade. He stated GM already makes use of LFP batteries in its electrical automobiles in China.

GM’s Ultium batteries now use cells with nickel-cobalt-manganese-aluminum cathodes, which retailer extra vitality and allow longer driving vary than LFP cells, however are costlier.

The automaker has indicated its Ultium joint-venture battery vegetation with associate LG Chem in Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan will produce cells with NCMA cathodes, whereas a fourth U.S. plant with Samsung SDI will make “nickel-rich” battery cells.

The primary elements in LFP and LMFP cathodes are comparatively extra ample than nickel and cobalt and are typically much less unstable, battery consultants say.

Mitra Chem was cofounded by Vivas Kumar, chief government officer; Will Chueh, chief scientific adviser, and Chirranjeevi Gopal, chief product officer.

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