GM's next-gen EV platform bets on LMR batteries even as its EV sales slide

General Motors used its GM Forward event in New York on Wednesday to lay out its fourth-generation EV platform. The new platform is built around a battery chemistry GM hopes will make electric vehicles cheaper to build.

The platform will use lithium-manganese-rich (LMR) prismatic cells. Ultium Cells, GM's joint venture with LG Energy Solution, will make them at its plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee. GM claims LMR offers 33% more energy density than lithium iron phosphate (LFP), the common low-cost chemistry, at a similar price.

GM also made several claims about the platform itself. It says that with new drive units and better aerodynamics, the platform should deliver about 20% more range per kilowatt-hour. GM says the battery pack is 20% more compact and that the vehicles are expected to be 15% lighter and 25% more aerodynamic. It also says the drive units use 40% fewer parts.

GM did not give a launch date for the platform and did not name any models that will use it. It said only that LMR will go into its "highest-volume EV segments."

The automaker also said a new central computer, which it claims has 40 times the computing power of current systems, will debut on the Cadillac Escalade IQ in 2028. GM says autonomous highway driving will also start on the Escalade IQ in 2028 and then expand to full-size SUVs and light-duty pickups.

Behind these plans is a push to speed up development. GM says it is targeting a development cycle of about two years from concept to production, compared with the traditional four to five years, using AI and simulation. It did not say when it expects to reach that goal.

CNBC reported that GM is aiming for a vehicle development time of roughly two years from concept to production, about half the traditional four- to five-year cycle, by using AI, simulation and more concurrent engineering to cut physical testing. Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson told CNBC that "there's inherent virtue to speed." GM said it virtually tested more than 300,000 battery designs using its LMR chemistry before building a physical prototype, CNBC reported.

The plans come as GM's EV sales are falling. According to GM Authority's tally of GM's delivery report, GM sold 25,213 EVs in the U.S. in the third quarter, down about 62% from 66,501 a year earlier. That drop followed the end of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit.

"We continue to develop our future EVs and work to reduce battery costs," GM President Mark Reuss said at the event. "And when the U.S. market is ready for EVs in large numbers, we will be there for them."