GM, in response to supply shortages and rising costs, as well as to increase its electric vehicle production in the North American market, recently announced a partnership with a Canadian battery recycling company to produce new batteries from recycled battery materials.
General Motors, through its GM Ventures venture capital, has participated in a Series A financing round for Lithion Recycling, a developer of advanced battery recycling technology. Together, the two companies will work to build a recycling ecosystem to recover electric vehicle batteries, a key bottleneck for the industry’s phase-out of gas engines by the end of the century.
Until recently, the global rollout of electric vehicles has focused on building sufficient charging stations to get full electrification off the ground by 2030. But the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have disrupted the global supply chain, making raw materials scarce and expensive to use batteries.
GM and other automakers are pushing for more control over supply by outsourcing operations and bringing more of the battery lifecycle in-house. About 15 million tons of lithium-ion batteries are expected to be retired by 2030, the deadline most automakers have set for phasing out gas-engine vehicles, according to AquaMetals.
Jeff Morrison, GM’s vice president of global procurement and supply chain, said in a statement that the partnership with Lithion will help GM build “a supply chain and recycling strategy that can grow with us.
