At a splashy GM Forward event in New York City on October 21, General Motors laid out its plans to remain relevant in the auto manufacturing business. (Never mind that the industry enjoys a walled garden status in the US, which has chosen to erect trade barriers that exclude sales of Chinese made cars.)

There were plenty of announcements at the GM Forward event, but the one that was probably the most important is that GM will pin its hopes on a new battery chemistry developed in partnership with LG Energy Solution called LMR, which stands for lithium manganese rich.

If you are not familiar with it, that is because no one else in the industry is using it, so far as we know. Everyone else is transitioning from nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) to less expensive iron batteries (LFP) or sodium batteries that eliminate the use of lithium completely. GM has decided to go in a different direction, and that decision will either pay dividends or push GM further down the slope that leads to bankruptcy.

It’s a bold strategy and it signals that GM has not given up the pursuit of electric vehicles. But we have seen this video before from a company that has flip flopped several times on its EV strategy. Is this the time when GM sticks to its guns and fashions a successful EV strategy? Maybe…..

The LMR battery is designed to offer 33 percent more energy density than lithium iron phosphate, which is expected to translate into longer range from a smaller and lighter battery pack that costs about the same as one that uses LFP chemistry.

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